Local hero who hopped aboard to save the X53 service to Arcadia
...and how his battle for one of Britain’s loveliest bus routes has won a resounding victory
WHEN Alan Williams climbs aboard the X53 bus from Bridport to Weymouth, he should be greeted by the sound of trumpets. A red carpet and a standing ovation from the other passengers would be in order.
For he is no ordinary passenger. Alan, 78, a retired insurance analyst, has effectively saved the X53’s Sunday service after offering to pay £3,000 out of his own pocket.
First Wessex bus company said it couldn’t afford to run Sunday buses between Lyme Regis, Weymouth and Bridport in Dorset in winter, but changed its mind after Alan’s offer attracted huge publicity.
‘I’m delighted,’ he says, ‘and I’m sure everybody round here will feel the same. Not only are the company going to run it themselves but they have said they will cancel any charges for keeping the buses running over the past three weeks. So effectively I won’t have anything to pay.
‘Somebody said to me that the next thing I should do is take over the trains.’
Alan’s extraordinary generosity has turned him into a bit of a celebrity. He has been on the radio. Channel 4 want to interview him and the regional TV news has been down to see him. He is clearly having a whale of a time, and poses for pictures like a regular at Hollywood premieres.
‘I stopped answering the phone at one point,’ he says. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to have any lunch.’
There is a bus stop right outside Alan’s Bridport home, so it seemed only polite to take the X53 from the town’s central bus station to collect him for a journey on the route that means so much to him — in this case, a ten-mile trip (single fare £4) to the picturesque village of Abbotsbury.
THE Jurassic Coaster sets off at 2.21pm precisely, with driver Mark at the wheel and just two passengers: me and a lady who is visiting the area for a week and not exactly in a chatty mood. But no matter. We swing into East Street, noting the former inn (now a charity shop) where Charles II once spent the night. Then, at our first stop, we are joined by Anthony Tarrier and his wife Jane, both 67.
They have been shopping and are returning to Chickerell, two miles outside Weymouth.
‘We usually go on market day, which is Wednesday, and Saturday, so we can shop, have a beer and relax,’ says Anthony. ‘If this route disappeared, it would cut a lot of people off. We have a car but a lot of others don’t.’
A few stops later, Alan himself climbs aboard. He swipes his pensioner’s pass and we take the back seats on the top deck like two naughty schoolboys. He still has to pay before 9.30am, by the way, generous donor or not.
He is wearing a woolly hat and a heavy anorak. Very wise, too. In winter a Siberian wind can whip in off the sea here.
We chat about bus timetables and bus company budgets, which would probably be Alan’s specialist subject on Mastermind, but he also points out local landmarks.
First, the stretch of water in Bridport where he learnt to swim as a boy: ‘The way they did it back then was to put a piece of canvas round your waist, tie a rope to it, and hang you over the sea.’
Then there is St John’s church in West Bay, the organ of which is apparently closer to the sea than any other in the country.
The main attraction, though, is the view from the top deck. The route to Abbotsbury winds its way through the sort of rugged countryside in which Thomas Hardy’s heroines came to sticky ends.
There was hope in 2018 that it might be named Britain’s most scenic bus route. But the 840 Coastliner service from Leeds to Whitby, which crosses the North York Moors, turned out to be even more ruggedly beautiful.
Still, Yorkshire doesn’t have this view of Chesil beach (above), where the bus stop by the car park was installed at Alan’s request.
And it’s not just buses that benefit from Alan’s generosity. A lifelong bachelor, he says his lifestyle has allowed him the freedom to pursue a range of interests.
As a keen amateur actor and singer, he appeared in 20 shows at the Bristol Hippodrome and once played a Nazi stormtrooper in The Sound Of Music. Now he supports two youth theatres in Bridport.
He also donated £30,000 over five years to Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, which needed £80,000 to replace a statue of a gladiator.
Bridport-born Alan was introduced to buses at an early age. While his mother was expecting him, she worked as a conductress. ‘She was actually a nurse,’ he says, ‘but worked for Southern National because it paid more.’
He left school at 18 and got an administration job on the railways before joining Unigate, the dairy company, in Bristol.
Later he made his career as an IT analyst at a life insurance firm until, when he was 53, the company was taken over and he accepted a generous redundancy payment, taking early retirement.
A man who can subsidise bus companies surely has a bob or two in the bank, but Alan insists he is comfortably off rather than wealthy: ‘I’m certainly not a millionaire. I have a good pension and I had some policies that matured.’
He still lives in the modest home he inherited from his parents, and drives a Vauxhall Vectra: ‘I hardly ever use it, although sometimes on Sundays it’s the only way you can get somewhere.’
Which is why his campaign has been so vital to local people. Alan explains: ‘Sunday is the only day some of them can go out. And there are others who need to go to work, particularly in the hospitality sector.’
Astonishingly, this isn’t the first time he has offered to take over from First Wessex, which made £115million in pre-tax profits last year. Three years ago they announced that the X53 Sunday service would close for the winter.
‘I asked them for a quote to run four buses between Bridport and Weymouth from September until Christmas,’ says Alan. ‘But we actually took so much money that they didn’t charge me in the end. I knew it wasn’t that much of a risk — we have holidaymakers here until November.’
In general, though, rural bus services have been in gradual decline for years. Services have been cut so widely, the situation has been compared to Dr Beeching’s rail closures in the 1960s.
ACCORDING to the Campaign for Better Transport, 3,000 routes were reduced or withdrawn between 2010 and 2018, while local authority transport subsidies fell by over 30 per cent.
Faced with the possibility of being stuck in isolated villages, volunteers have started running their own services. In Yorkshire, the Western Dales Bus Company relies on unpaid drivers and Lottery funding.
Could they and people like Alan be the only possible future for rural public transport? In a statement, First Wessex said: ‘We thoroughly commend Mr Williams’s actions in supporting access to public transport for local customers and thank him for his hard work in raising awareness of the funding challenges faced by operators.’
Because of Alan’s fine support for local transport and the arts, an OBE has already been suggested. But I’m not sure that would really set his pulse racing.
There is a gleam in his eye when I suggest the Jurassic Coaster buses be renamed. Room for one more inside, please, on The Alan Williams Service, which would always arrive on time.