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Tuesday, April 22, 2014
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John’s school bus marathon BY ERIN TASKER
ERIN.T@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
In 1964 John Knight was asked to do a month’s trial as a school bus driver. Fifty years on, he’s still driving school buses, ferrying Lauriston School kids to and from school every day. It’s something he sort of fell into, but it’s something he came to love. Mr Knight was in his 20s and working on his mixed farm in the area when the opportunity arose to drive the Rokeby School bus. “Someone rang me up and asked if I would give it a month’s trial and a funny thing happened, he didn’t call me back at the end of the month,” Mr Knight said. It worked in well with his farming work. “There were plenty of days I was happy to get out of the shearing shed and say I’ve got to go and do the school run,” Mr Knight said. He’s no longer farming, but he still spends four days every school week taking kids to and from school. He’s now driving the children of children he drove to school in his early years of bus driving but is yet to welcome the third generation on board his bus; the changing rural landscape has put a stop to that with an in-
John Knight has spent 50 years ferrying school kids. PHOTO ERIN TASKER 170414-ET-009
crease in dairying seeing families moving around a lot more than they used to. He’s also seen plenty of physical changes to the Mid Canterbury landscape. “When I started there was one sealed road in the area and that was the Rakaia Barrhill Meth-
ven Road, and there was a small sealed strip in front of the Rokeby School,” he said. He still has the odd shingle road to tackle and they’re not always in the best condition, only getting graded when people complain about them. But he’s happy in his work. He
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adopts a firm tone with the children when needed, but is open to a bit of fun too. To the kids, he’s known as Mr Knight and most of the children he’s driven over the years have been good, respectful kids, with only a few “rotten apples” in the mix.
He’s driven through floods and snow and hasn’t taken many days off; if he takes a holiday it’s in the school holidays. With 50 years now under his belt, Mr Knight’s not sure what the future holds, but right now, he plans to enjoy the school holidays. Ph 03 307 7900 to subscribe!
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