Percy’s Bus

“If you are smiling, you can’t be crying”. That was the motto of Percy Taylor, the father of Susan Briars.


Using a century of journals written by Susan Briars' father, Percy, and grandfather, Ernest Taylor, this book chronicles the everyday lives of her extraordinary, extended family, as told from her father’s viewpoint, covering the war years and observing the changing society.


The narrative begins his life in the austere Edwardian period, going through his time in service and then onto his many years driving buses and coaches. Here we meet a myriad of interesting characters and find out just what real life is like “on the buses”.


Susan Briars was born in Lincoln during WW2 and raised in Leicester, where she still resides today. After attending Alderman Newton’s Grammar School, she went on to train as a teacher and taught in primary schools in and around Leicester for thirty years. Now retired, she enjoys her many hobbies and spends time with her grandchildren.