I read with great interest The Whisperer’s piece in the December 2024 issue of routeone about the group who are fans of the Bristol-Street 376 service.
I wonder if they might be interested in the story behind the last run into Wells, which became dubbed ‘the ghost train’ back in the 1960s after driver Cliff Callow arrived white faced back at Priory Road, swearing blind that he had seen a ghost on Chewton Plain, a plateau above Farrington Gurney and Chewton Mendip!
I was told by other drivers that Cliff was partial to a drop of scrumpy, but either way, the name stuck and Cliff still did the occasional stint as I recall, so obviously he wasn’t severely traumatised. I reckon he got a lot of leg pulling at the time, (before I started as a B1 breakdown mechanic in 1974).
It set me thinking about the story of the time before Bristol REs, when two Bristol MWs, one from Wells towards Bristol and one coming from Bristol, met in the narrows of Chewton Mendip in between two drystone walls of the Waldegrave Estate, which is part of the Duchy of Lancaster.
My workmates recalled that it took hours to part the buses, which were wedged tightly together. After that, the 376 service would sit in a layby on Chewton Plain until the opposite vehicle went past. In recent years this system seems to have been dropped, despite the modern double-deckers being slightly wider.
Hugh Franklin
Brinklow
