![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lethargic_manI read somewhere I can't now find a little while ago about how Routemaster buses were judged the most recognisable symbol of Britain, or something.
Well, they aren't. What they are is the most whatever-it-was of London, and portraying them as representative of Britain is yet another example of London-centric thinking (though I will grant that as far as foreigners are concerned, it will be features of London that represent Britain for them).
Where I grew up, there was nary a Routemaster in sight. Indeed, only half of the buses, the ones operated by Northumbria, were red, and even those were later repainted to match the company's revised branding.
The local buses, the ones operated by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive until its deregulation in 1986, and Busways thereafter—i.e. all the ones I ever took—were, rather, yellow:
(As a teenager, my mother, like myself when I too was first prescribed them, avoided wearing glasses when she could possibly get away with it. She used to tell the story of how she finally realised she had to start wearing them more, when, waiting at a bus stop, she tried to flag down a bus, only to realise as it came nearer it was actually a girl in a yellow cagoule on a bike. :o))
FWIW, the child fare on one of these buses was, at the time, 5p. (I remember a friend telling the story of how a driver refused to give him change when he tried to buy a 5p ticket with a £20 note!) It's now 60p; why has it risen so much more than inflation?
Well, they aren't. What they are is the most whatever-it-was of London, and portraying them as representative of Britain is yet another example of London-centric thinking (though I will grant that as far as foreigners are concerned, it will be features of London that represent Britain for them).
Where I grew up, there was nary a Routemaster in sight. Indeed, only half of the buses, the ones operated by Northumbria, were red, and even those were later repainted to match the company's revised branding.
The local buses, the ones operated by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive until its deregulation in 1986, and Busways thereafter—i.e. all the ones I ever took—were, rather, yellow:
![[photo]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/TWPTE_bus_196_Leyland_Atlantean_MCW_VFT_196T_in_Newcastle_June_1980.jpg)
Image by Martin Addison.
(As a teenager, my mother, like myself when I too was first prescribed them, avoided wearing glasses when she could possibly get away with it. She used to tell the story of how she finally realised she had to start wearing them more, when, waiting at a bus stop, she tried to flag down a bus, only to realise as it came nearer it was actually a girl in a yellow cagoule on a bike. :o))
FWIW, the child fare on one of these buses was, at the time, 5p. (I remember a friend telling the story of how a driver refused to give him change when he tried to buy a 5p ticket with a £20 note!) It's now 60p; why has it risen so much more than inflation?
no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 01:14 pm (UTC)I grew up with silver buses!
http://www.barp.ca/preserved/0368/08192003.jpg
They are blue now.
I would add, though, that I don't think the capital city centric view is only applicable to Britain - if you think of France, most people probably will come up with the Eiffel Tower, and with Russia, it would be Red Square or the Kremlin. I guess it isn't quite so with Germany. I am not sure what people would associate with Germany apart from unfortunately Nazi stuff. Maybe Neuschwanstein Castle? I guess in Berlin it would be the Brandenburg Gate.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 06:46 pm (UTC)And the Reichstag for the historically-aware. I've never heard of Neuschwanstein Castle; should I have?
no subject
Date: 2014-03-12 07:28 am (UTC)http://www.baviere-quebec.org/imperia/md/quebec/tourismus/neuschwanstein_bild.jpeg
It looks like a fairytale castle and Disney copied their castle off it. Built by a prince who was a bit odd.