Radio presenter Ken Bruce has told a motoring podcast that learning to drive a bus and sitting his PCV test was “one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life”.
Ken talked to the Scotland the Drive podcast about owning seven buses – including ex-London Transport red Routemasters – along with a group of broadcasting colleagues. They ran them as a business hiring them out for weddings and corporate events but following the pandemic they closed the business.
He often drove the buses, having taken a week off work in 2004 to take lessons and pass his test.
“It’s a great feeling driving buses,” he told the podcast,”but owning a bus is a good way of losing money”.
Ken is patron of the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust. “They have all the buses I could ever need and I don’t have to spend money on them.”
He moved south 40 years ago after starting his broadcasting career at BBC Radio Scotland and spent 35 years at BBC Radio 2 but now presents the mid-morning show on Greatest Hits Radio from London.
He told the podcast he has always thought of moving back to Scotland and setting up home in the Highlands but his dream has never become a reality.
“There was a point when I thought I would give up daily broadcasting and move to the Highlands and if I was still required in London I would jump on the Sleeper. I would be in this lovely imagined studio in Elgin, Nairn or somewhere and it was something I would do one day….but it has never happened.
“Who knows – it might happen one day but time is running out.”
He spoke about the cars he’s had in his life including a Vauxhall Cavalier, a Hillman Avenger and a Honda Civic and some of the vehicles he drove while working for a car hire company in Glasgow.
“We were allowed to take cars home and sometimes it was a van,” he said.”I once took my then wife to the opera in Glasgow in a bread van – which was very romantic.”
He enjoys driving cars but they have to be functional. “Getting my head under the bonnet is not for me. I’m certainly not a mechanic.”
His favourite car was a Saab 900 convertible and getting the roof down if the temperature rose above 15 degrees. He now drives a hybrid Land Rover Discovery Sport.
” It does around 36 miles on electric power which is great for my daily commute to the railway station, so I hardly ever have to buy petrol.”
Scotland the Drive is available on You Tube, Spotify, Instagram and TikTok