The No. 24 is the oldest surviving bus route in London. It takes people from the hill to the river: Hampstead Heath to Victoria station since 1910, and Hampstead Heath to Pimlico since 1912. Now, as part of the Government’s insistence on diminishing bus services, it is likely to be abolished and replaced by the No. 88, whose route will be tweaked, and will no longer serve Parliament Hill. Perhaps it is believed that no one in Parliament Hill needs it: as if social cleansing has progressed so far that all nocturnal travellers can go by Range Rover.
If you wouldn’t live in a city made entirely of cars — and we do, but I have hope — bus routes are essential. If you are elderly, disabled or have young children, the Underground is not safe. Underground travel is dramatic — thrilling and awful, below the throb of the city — but it is no place for the vulnerable, and they know it.
