Today (11 June 2011) I read in the paper that Brian Souter is to be awarded a knighthood. This prompted me to find out more about this man who possibly more than anybody else has transformed the bus industry over the last thirty years.

Brian was nearly thrown out of school and was made to repeat a year. When on his final warning, his timetable was changed to include economics and accounts. He found this interesting and worked hard, qualifying as a commerce teacher. He was then accepted at Strathclyde University and sailed through a joint accountancy and economics course in two years. However, because he received no grant, Brian worked as a full time bus conductor for Central SMT in Glasgow, working an early shift, sprinting into university and then resuming his conducting duties in the afternoon.

On graduating, Brian joined an accountancy firm who did not allow moonlighting. But Brian continued to work part-time as a conductor until one day a drunken passenger beat him up. When he arrived at work the next morning with a broken nose and cuts and bruises, the truth came out and the conducting had to cease! However, in travelling round on his accountancy work, Brian believed there were gaps in the bus and coach market and, despite being advised against it, was determined that he wanted to get involved.

Of course, all good bus enthusiasts know that 1980 was an important year for the transport industry because coach travel was deregulated. Brian had persuaded his sister Ann Gloag and husband Robin to buy a bus for school runs. Next, using his father’s redundancy money, they bought two coaches and the Stagecoach Group was born.

Brian drove and Ann served the refreshments on the Glasgow to London coach service, working round the clock to keep the schedules running, aiming to put the needs of the passenger first. Fortunately, the Stagecoach name caught people’s imagination.

1985 was an even more important year for the transport industry with all UK bus services outside London deregulated. Brian and Ann first ran bargain Magicbus services around Glasgow with ex-London Routemasters. The sale of the companies that formed the National Bus Company was too good an opportunity to miss and Stagecoach bought Cumberland, Hampshire, East Midlands, Ribble, Southdown and United Counties.

In the twenty-five or so years since then, many other companies have been bought by Stagecoach, including companies operating trains and trams. Operations in Kenya, Malawi, Portugal, Sweden, Hong Kong and New Zealand have been bought and later sold, though Stagecoach continue to have a presence in USA and Canada, even though the initial purchase nearly brought Stagecoach to its knees, but in a slimmed down form Coach USA is now profitable. Over the years, airports and ferries have been run, trains leased and hovercraft services experimented with, but it is the buses and trains that are the core of the business. London buses are still regulated. At one point Stagecoach pulled out of London but has now, at an attractive price, bought its way back in.

People who know Brian suggest that it is Brian’s deep seated Christian faith that makes him tick. He and his wife Betty set up the Souter Charitable Trust in 1992. This has distributed millions of pounds to worthy causes over the years.

Brian is a hard headed businessman so not everybody is happy with his methods. When I joined Stagecoach East Midland as a driver in the mid-1990s, those who had worked for the National Bus Company were disgusted by Brian Souter and Ann Gloag as they had cut wages and changed the pension plans, although my recollection is that ex-NBC staff were on protected higher wages and pensions than the rest of us. I have to say that my initial £3.25 per hour minibus rate with no extra for unsociable hours or overtime did not go down too well. On the other hand, why was the government selling off the National Bus Company? What would have happened to the industry if wages and conditions had not been revised? I do not have an answer except to say I am constantly amazed that in these days of high car ownership buses appear to make a good profit and in many cases run a more frequent service with more modern vehicles than years ago. I doubt this would have happened without drastic changes. Incidentally, the Mansfield drivers I worked with describe Brian who they met in the canteen above the bus station enquiry office as “looking like a tramp with a Tesco plastic bag”!

Those of us who live in the East Midlands can hardly fail to have noticed the Stagecoach presence. Apart from buses throughout Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Humberside and South Yorkshire, there are Sheffield Supertram and East Midlands Trains. Megabus no longer serves Chesterfield and Nottingham but does call at Sheffield, Meadowhall.

Many people do not realise you can use the MEGABUS website to book cheap train tickets between, for example, Chesterfield and London, starting at one pound for a single journey. Admittedly, you will be lucky to find that fare but I have just looked one month in advance and have been offered £5 single on the 1339 departure from Chesterfield to London (or £7 one hour earlier) with two choices of £10 tickets for the return journey the next day (departing London 0955 or 1155). Several times I have travelled on East Midlands trains between Nottingham and Norwich and the single fares have been between £1 and £13 (usually £6) booked two or three weeks in advance. There are bargains available if you are prepared to search for them!

Does Brian Souter deserve this honour the Queen is to bestow upon him? I certainly think he does and I congratulate Sir Brian and hope that somebody as far sighted and as hard working and determined as Brian will emerge to develop public transport over the next thirty years.

Oliver Foreman
11 June 2011