THE MOUSEHOLE/PENZANCE SHUTTLE BUS...

 The Mousehole/Penzance Shuttle Bus…

At twenty-minute intervals,

With habitual regularity

The Penzance to Mousehole bus,

With unique sobriety

Shuttles and hustles, 

Bustles and tussles,

Displaying placid patience 

And commendable continuity…

It peeps, then creeps almost timidly round a corner,

Tentatively making the awkward turn,

Assessing the curve for lurking encumbrances

Like oncoming traffic, pedestrians or vehicles tarrying,

Or delivering, or collecting, or procrastinating, some even obstructing,

Before edging round onto the harbour, making sluggish advances.

A wide berth for its wide girth is carefully calculated,

 Quite essential as it crawls onwards, sedately 

To its terminus for its passengers’ conveniences,

Like some who stand near the clocktower tarrying,

Or waiting, or flaunting, or flouting, some even alighting,

Before swaggering abroad to delight the onlooking audiences…

At twenty-minute intervals,

With onerous difficulty

The driver reverses the bus,

Past memorial’s sobriety,

Shuffles and hustles,

Tussles and bustles,

Displaying practised tolerance

And remarkable assiduity… 

Pete Ray

29th December 2021

From my accommodation at The Boat Watch, 2 Fore Street, the acute regularity of the buses on this short route was a sight to behold.

Rarely even a few minutes late, the buses shuttled into Mousehole and out again, the return journey’s starting forwards into Fore Street, thus making an angle for reversing almost back to the Ship Inn, from where the driver could turn back easily across the harbour front.

When delivery vans, refuse vehicles, even a fire engine parked at or near the terminus, or if there were too many folks looking at the Christmas lights, the driver simply turned the bus round at the opposite end of the harbour road.

The two black and white images show that really, in Mousehole, the bus service has transcended all adversity…