Winchester’s first woman bus driver has celebrated 50 years since she first got behind the wheel by being pictured in a 1959 Leyland Tiger Cub which is part of Friends of King Alfred’s Buses’ (FoKAB) collection.
Mary Curry, who was one of two women bus conductors who successfully applied in 1973 to become drivers for Hants & Dorset, which had just taken over operations in the city from King Alfred Motor Services.
She continued driving buses until she was aged 68 in 2007 but continued working for Stagecoach in Winchester at the Bar End depot until her retirement in 2019, aged 80.
Mary recalls: “After passing our test, we had a few days to be familiarised with the different types of bus in the fleet and then, on 11 November, we were able to go out on our own.”
She notes that she and the other pioneering colleague Mary Gardiner, who left the buses in 1974, learned to drive on an old Bristol double-decker, which was without the automatic transmission and power steering commonplace later.
Mary, who started working for King Alfred in 1961 and took a break from 1969 to 1971, looks back fondly on her career. She has been a long supporter of FoKAB, which maintains the surviving King Alfred vehicles and will next offer free rides in Winchester on New Year’s Day.
