The Number 62 Route

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Both Linda and Mary being busy today, I was delighted to have Jenny as company and as photographer. We were able to start quite early and after two other buses, about which our readers will learn in future years, we boarded the 62 at 11.40.

Its departure point was in the Gascoigne estate, so we had had a short walk through Barking market to get there. The bus was very full, with shoppers, and when some go off, others got on, so only for the last few stops was there no-one standing. Jenny and I noted a young boy who should certainly have been in school, but he was looking after a not-very-able elderly man. We also enjoyed the condom advertisement on the bus.

All this emphasis on what was going on in the bus points to the fact that this was not the most exciting trip we had ever been on. For almost all the route, we were going through housing of varying ages and sizes, and being the sole bus serving the route, providing the way for people to get home with their shopping.

Interesting things we did pass included the new memorial to Driver Job Drain VC, who won his VC in August 1914, when the war had barely begun. And there was some attractive public art on the roundabout taking us out of Barking. The Royal Oak pub boasted 'probably the best beer garden in Barking' though its misplaced apostrophe ('video camera's in operation') annoyed us both.

Barking Park was showing clear signs of spring, as were the grounds of Barking Hospital and the huge cemetery just past Upney Station.

After Becontree Station, more residential roads brought us to Chadwell Heath, crossing both the A13 and the A12; then we were in Marks Gate, and the bus went on until, to our surprise, we came to THE END of London, and the Green Belt stretched ahead of us as we turned into Billet Road and terminated, somewhat far from anything, much! Our journey on the 62 had lasted exactly an hour.