Pensioner with tub of paint refused bus travel

12:17pm Wednesday 20th February 2008

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Seventy-six-year-old Breda Fox got the brush off - as she tried to take a sealed two-and-a-half litre tub of paint on the bus.

Baffled Breda was left "upset and embarrassed" when the driver put the brakes on her ten-minute trip home.

The great grandmother was told she was not allowed on with her £2.49 tub of emulsion - because it was potentially dangerous.

She had bought the paint along with a bag of bulbs for planting from B & Q in Chorley, just across the road from where she was about to catch the 125/126 service Stagecoach bus home to her bungalow in Carlton Avenue, Clayton-le-Woods.

Ironically she waited ten minutes for the next bus, concealed the tub in a carrier bag with her bulbs and got on without any problems.

The incident certainly got the Irish widow's paddy up. "I said to the driver, you what, are you joking?" she said. "But he just said, you are not allowed on with that.

"I said, I've got on before with several cans of paint.

"He even said it's flammable stuff.

"I said, it's emulsion and he said, I don't care, you still can't get on."

Breda, who hails from Cork City and has lived in Chorley for more than 20 years, bought the paint to decorate her back bedroom.

"I was really shaken and upset. It was embarrassing for me too because there were people on the bus I knew," she said.

"I really thought he was joking because he had a grin on his face. I was flabbergasted.

"I said, if that's the case are they going to get a detector to find out what everybody has got in their bag?

"I just don't want this to happen to anybody else."

Breda, who has three daughters and a son, ten grandchildren and seven great grandchildren, rang Stagecoach in Preston to make a complaint.

A spokesman for of Stagecoach said: "Our drivers have a responsibility to our customers and members of the public as well when carrying out their duties and under PSV regulations there are strict regulations on the carrying of dangerous or hazardous goods which is split into four categories."

He said these were: Articles which may cause injury or danger to anyone on the bus; articles which might damage the vehicle or property of someone on the bus; bicycles; pushchairs.

He added: "In the past we have had problems where customers which have brought on paint. The bus has been in transit and it has come open spilling paint all over the floor and onto customers."

Breda also phoned two of her daughters, Julia Baker and Carmel Marskel, to tell them about her ordeal. Julia helped to calm her down and Carmel sent her a bunch of flowers to cheer her up.

Breda said: "I've heard of people not being allowed on the bus with big things, but a tin of emulsion. It's ridiculous.

"If I see the driver again I'll ask him, if he's got a mother, would he turn her off the bus?"