Ordeal in the snow

“It should be here any minute now.”

The six of us gazed hopefully up Nelson Street in Bradford city centre. One after another, buses were cautiously negotiating their way through the snow drifts, pulling to a stop beside the three shelters. Our own stop was positioned round a bend on a road called Hall Ings, next to the Jacobs’ Well pub and a barricaded stairway. This forlorn shelter has no ‘electronic scoreboard’ to tell you the expected ETA. It’s been pressed into service because Bradford bus station has been extensively repaired. On that very day, Sunday 5^th January, the bus station had reopened to most services. We were amongst the select few to miss out.  

The Hall Ings stop and pub in normal weather conditions

Our four companions were young Asians. Waiting the longest was a Pakistani who had been an engineer back home, now working in a city restaurant. He wore plastic bags on his feet because he hadn’t any waterproof shoes. A giggly young lady said she worked as a nurse at a care home in Bramley, half way to Leeds. The others, a lively couple, had travelled from London on the same train as us. They were all going to Huddersfield on the Number 363. Brighouse is just over half way.

-o-O-o-

“Hmm…should’ve come by now; it’s 15 minutes overdue. Do we wait, or should we try for a taxi?” We all decided to hang on. Poor bus, it had probably been delayed ‘cos it’d been sliding around in the slush. Besides, Miss Giggles, who seemed to be tech-savvy, had an App which said the bus was just five minutes away… but this optimistic prediction was not borne out by events.

It had all seemed so hopeful. Our 18:53 Grand Central train from rainy London was running after all; it just wasn’t running up the Calder Valley through Brighouse. The line goes up a steep incline, which I believe was snowbound, into Halifax,  Instead, the train ran directly from Wakefield to Bradford, so we opted to stay on it, then catch the last scheduled bus home. We alighted at 21:47 onto a whited-out concourse. Reaching the bus stop wasn’t easy, dragging our small suitcases for 10 minutes through an inch-deep layer of slush soup guaranteed to soak all but the best footwear.  

-o-O-o-

 “Look, it’s half an hour late. We’re all getting frozen. Time to call a taxi, surely?” Miss Giggly-Tech went on her Uber App and requested a 7-seater taxi for us all. To our brief delight, she had a reply. £50 to take us all to Huddersfield, from the top of Nelson Street. She sent a reply saying ‘yes please’ but asking the driver to come to our stop, H11.

And then – she received a message saying the guy had decided to decline the job! Evidently we’d been too fussy. What sort of taxi set-up is this, we wondered? At this point, the Pakistani waiter decided he’d had enough, and then trudged back to stay with a friend who lived near his workplace.

Time for a more traditional solution, I thought, as I called our local Brighouse taxi firm. This sounded better; I was speaking to the controller who placed me on hold whilst she spoke to her team. That’s how I like things to be done. Proper booking system with a meter to work out the fare. The lady then came back on. She told me it’d be two hours until a taxi could reach us…Shiver, shiver!

Jane ventured a solution. We’d stay at the Premier Inn near the station, leaving the three youngsters to grab a standard size taxi. She was just articulating this when Miss GT gave a little shriek of joy. Another Uber driver had offered to take us all for £30! He’d meet us at the top of Nelson Street, and this time we were NOT arguing! We slithered and waddled for 250 difficult yards up said thoroughfare – which I do not want to revisit any time soon – until we reached the designated spot where Miss GT’s App said he’d be. The couple insisted on helping with our suitcases despite being well burdened themselves. And to our enormous relief, a taxi appeared as detailed by said App!

The car was warm and comfy, the driver – Asian, inevitably – was friendly as he negotiated the snow-covered roads. We’d all agreed to pay him a bit extra as a sweetener for dropping myself and Jane en route, which was apparently not allowed by Uber as it meant we’d need a separate contract with the driver. (Who made up that daft rule?) It wasn’t a problem.

-o-O-o-

Jane and I crawled into our house just before midnight. We put on our ‘leccy blanket and slept exceedingly well…

Young people certainly inhabit a different planet, but we were both moved by the way three young Asians looked after us and stuck by us, including us in their plans.