INTERVIEW
R
on Gatland was just five years old when he decided
he wanted to be a bus driver when he grew up.
Before he reached his 22nd birthday his boyhood
dream had been fulfilled, and he is still enjoying
life behind the wheel - even though he officially ‘retired’ 18
months ago.
Ron has not just driven all over the Island, but to
numerous destinations on the mainland, and across
Europe. He said: “The job today is not what it was when I
started all those years ago, but I have loved every minute of
it, and I wouldn't change a single day. If I won the lottery I
would still do it.”
He has driven every type of bus and coach imaginable;
from old-style buses without power steering and a 30mph
limit, to plush coaches capable of completing a 1,000-miles
round trip to Scotland inside five days. He won Southern
Vectis Driver of the Year no fewer than six times, and
represented the company in the National Finals on several
occasions.
He said: “I have always said there are bus drivers and there
are those who drive buses. Those who drive buses get the
aggravation, bus drivers don’t.”
He was born in Dartford Kent in 1947 and then moved to
a small village between Rye and Hastings. He said: “I was
“I didn't like the oneman buses as much
because you missed
the banter, but I got
used to them."
five years old and I remember watching a single-deck, half
cab bus coming through the village twice a day. In the hop
picking season a big double-decker bus used to come by - to
me it looked a monster coming down the road. My mum,
dad and I would get on the bus and I would run straight up
and stand behind the driver watching him drive down to the
hop gardens. I used to do that every day, and my mind was
made up, I wanted to do that one day.”
Ron admits he didn't like school, leaving at 15 to start
work for the Co-op as a delivery boy, riding a bike with a big
basket on the front. He said:" I have been on the road one
way or another ever since."
He gained his driving licence to drive electric powered
vehicles when he was 16, and soon had his own round,
delivering bread in an electric baker's van to 400 customers.
A year later he passed his test to drive petrol vehicles.
Ron soon met a young lady named Nicky, later to become
his wife, and when she and her mother moved to the Island
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