Souter recalls winter of ‘63

Jan 18 2011 by Gordon Bannerman, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

BRIAN Souter reckons his front-line staff have gone the extra mile to keep Perth moving during the most challenging winter weather of his business life.

And the Stagecoach chief executive, whose Perthshire workforce now numbers over 300, said: “I’m glad to say it has been appreciated, judging my the number of letters we have been receiving.

“We have attracted a lot of new customers but on the other hand a lot of older folk haven’t been able to get out the door.

“My father was a bus driver so I was always interested in public transport. And this has been the worst winter in my lifetime.

“I’m 56 now but at the age of nine I remember him taking me down to Blackford to see the big wall of snow that had piled up during the winter of 1963.

“That was the last time it was close to being as bad as this winter. It was as far as drivers on the route to Glasgow could get for about a week.”

Every year, Souter makes a point of spending a couple of days behind the wheel of a bus and he’ll press on regardless if that happens to coincide with more snow and a repeat of the ice pad conditions facing Fair City personnel since late November.

“Mind you, I like doing the route in Dundee which still has a conductor!” he chuckled.