Lost Property

What is it about Saturday's? The amount of lost property calls that go out over the radio on a Saturday equals the rest of the week put together. Usually the person who may or may not have actually left property on the bus approaches a driver or the Paignton controller and explains the problem. Then the radio burst into life with, "Any 12/12A left Paignton in the last 15 minutes heading for Brixham got any lost property." Or "Could all 32s check their buses for a missing mobile phone?" One time a few years ago, on the last Saturday before Christmas a passenger handed me a wallet containing £97.90, a debit card, a receipt for £100 from an ATM, a child return ticket Paignton to Torquay (£2.10) and a set of door keys. Christmas shopping over before it had begun plus no return ticket and no door keys. The passenger who had lost the wallet asked an other bus driver what she should do. He got on the radio and I was able to let the driver know I had the wallet and what time I would be back in Torquay and an hour and a half late Christmas shopping got started. This was a good result but why so much lost property on a Saturday?

Today the calls just seemed to go on and on. We try our best but not all passengers who find things on the bus hand them to the driver, unfortunately. Please look after your property when you get on a bus, saves lots of trouble.

Lost Property

Near the end of my shift a passenger handed me an envelope, addressed with 3 stamps on ready to be posted. Now technically this is lost property which I hand in at the end of my shift, write out a label with the name of the person who gave it to me the route and direction of travel the time it was found and my name and work number. It then goes in a box in the depot. If someone realises that they have lost something on a bus they can come into the depot at Torquay and claim it. If they don't come in before 9:30 the next morning it and all other lost property that has been handed in the previous day will be sent over to Paignton where it will be kept for a couple of months in the hope the person who lost it will come in and collect it. After 2 months when the collection of unclaimed property begins to clutter up the office a note is put up with a list of unclaimed property for the drivers to collect, I have in the past found a digital camera which was claimed and a CD player which wasn't claimed. I still have the CD player together with the CD that was in it but as I now have an iPod it isn't used. When the note goes up I should go over to Paignton and collect the letter which is now mine to do what I want with.

Did I go through all this procedure? No, I just posted the letter. So if you left a letter on a number 12 yesterday afternoon addressed to some where in Paignton it has been posted, after 6pm so it missed the last post, sorry, but it will get there by Thursday.

All in a days work.