Brother Billy meets the Bainsford bus with Jocks GREEVES Motorbike ca 1959 

By this time, Billy had sufficiently recovered to claim his rightful bounty by declaring the day's events had seriously depleted his strength and he'd need to sit down right away and recover with a big piece of pie. Jock's bike definitely faded into the dusk, except for Jock. He was definitely a minority in empathy, sympathy and any other word that dealt him any understanding. Poor auld Maw, one o' her wains injured in transit, anither about tae bury his GREEVEiously terminal work transport and me and Linda in various stages of sibling stress and pie starvation, and Faithir givin' a guid impression of wonderin' wha's kids these were. It's a guid job we looked sufficiently like him to know that he was tae blame! 

AND, how did it all happen! 

Well if you look at the old ca 1920's photo, which at the time of Billy's accident had no trams, but was still a one lane bridge over the Forth and Clyde Canal. Now from my memory, having walked from Falkirk to Bainsford across the bridge, on the footpath on the left hand side to attend my apprentice training at Burnbank Foundry Training Centre [from 1958-1961] prior to Falkirk Technical College being built about 1962, this photo shows the tram coming up to Falkirk. Therefore when Billy came down from Falkirk on the GREEVES trial bike, he was faced with, in similar words to, 'death meeting a lorry coming face on over the bridge, [much in the same position as the tram), or running up the back end of an Alexander's bus (SEE ARROWS -----111], thankfully a thin paneled double-decker.' 'Ye see Maw', in his mock-heroic 'woe is me' voice, I didnae hiv any ither alternative. And Maw, I thought o' ye and thought it's better for the bike tae be replaced than me'. Except Jock wasn't listening. By this time he was near apoplexic. His overalled figure seemed to deflate in resigned reality o' his dilemma - he'd lost his bike and, of secondary importance, his share o'Billy's pie. How humiliating to be beaten by a bus, in his plaintiff cry, 'bit sur ye could have went roon aboot it'. 'Aye, a know Jock says that Faithir, bit that's young yins fur yi'. 'Ken, Maw, a wis no as nimble oan that wet road', nimbly munchin doon the last slice o' pie. 

However, the story never ended there, but we all got our fair share of the pie, Maw always protected her collective of wains from the individual's immediate stomach needs. Tho, Dad always bemoaned the fact that when he wanted his 

share it was all gone, by the second day. Billy had convinced everyone that brakes on bikes needed seen to and that it wouldn't have mattered anyway what had happened, Jock's bike was cactus anyway. I'm dead sure that Jock, eating his share of the pie was reflecting on how much time he would have done if Billy had been done away with! And I don't think that Jock ever forgave Alexander's buses for having such thin aluminium sheeting on the back of their double deckers. For as much as it cushioned Billy from deathly injuries when he landed through on the bus's back landin', it certainly wrote of the GREEVES. 

No compensation was paid from Alexander's Buses or for that matter from insurance, an expensive bus ride indeed. 

But wait, Karma does come around! Jock, on his 6 month venture down to the antipodes in 1999-2000, and again just before he died in September 2001, told me of the pigeons being distance trained when he worked as Johnnie Rollo's engineering delivery service and installation man in the highlands of Scotland. It goes something like this. 

Billy, hearing of Jock's elevation to head of 'Rollo's Highland Adventures', could see a pigeon training opportunity, being a long time owner/trainer of these feathered foodies that ate more than they earned. 'Aye, it'll be nae bother, Billy', says wee brither, Jock,' naebotherata'. 

According to Jock, Billy didn't speak to him for a long time after the events that transpired. One would wonder why! 

It was thus; Jock agreed to take a Basket of Billy's Burds every time he, Jock, went up the hielands and as is wont in the pigeon world, the Burds get released at greater distances each time they get taken away – that is those that returned! And here's the rub. Jock was at Crieff, stoppin' oaf for a pint at the pubs on his journey, as any guid Scot wid dae to quench his thirst on the hot dusty hielan moors. Lo and behold, didn't the pub Chef spy the burds and gave Jock a proposition that any reasonable non-pigeon person might take up. 'Are they doos in that wicker basket ye have there', he enquired, given that any Rhodes Scholar could deduce this actuality with only a wee bit o' thir brainbox. 'Aye, oor intrepid Rollo's man replied, thinking mair o' the pot in hand than the burds in the bush - so to speak. Well wid ye sell them then! Jock, being entrepreneurial in nature, said, 'How many' – of the dozen or so burds. 'Aye, I'll tak the lot', replied oor Creif Chefie person. Not quite sure that selling all of them would be noticed back at the loft, Jock differs in his telling of this tale, but not surprisingly, Brother Billie did notice a sizeable drop in the returnees over the months that this flight training /Chefie contract ran. But conveniently at that time Scotland had other endangered burds as well, Sparrow hawks, who were winners on two strikes, one was the feast of wee fat pigeons far away frae hame and two, ripe for the plucking in the hielands. A pigeon paradise - but, unfortunately, no fur the pigeons. The hawks could take most of the blame. But worse was the human predator, the nefarious Chefie contract that wasn't part of Billy's 'transport contract'. 

Well, need a better picture be drawn! Is this GREEVEious Karma! Or was it Gordon Ramsey that Jock met at Crieff! 

Geordie Ellis May 2008 

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Macintosh HD:Users:ellenellis:Desktop:Brother Billy meets the Bainsford bus with Jocks GREEVES Motorbike ca 1959 

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Brother Billy meets the Bainsford bus with Jocks GREEVES Motorbike ca 1959 

Brother Billy meets the hinten' o' the Bainsford Bus, wae Jocks GREEVES bike ca 1959