Thursday, February 17/2011

Dougie drops over - the first time we have seen him this year. We were talking about not having seen him when M, who had his mobile number, texted. Dougie is a British born Cypriot who drives a local bus. For the last ten years it's been the airport route and he was always cheerful and friendly - knew his regulars by name. And of course that's how we knew him. In fact, as his business card shows, his name isn't really Dougie but Christakis Antoniou. So why Dougie, we ask. Well, it comes from the second half of his first name, and in Greek the t is pronounced like d. So it's a corruption of Daki.

He's in transition now, disillusioned by a system that has moved him to a backwater village route and left him with an unpleasant six day work week - and this despite the fact that they're expanding the routes and have hired new drivers So he's finishing next month and off back to Jersey where he drove a tourist bus for years and has maintained a house and a flat.