Routemasters of the Universe

The classic Routemaster bus last plied a London bus route in 2005, but this indestructible vehicle is still everywhere, as a wedding bus or a ghost bus, a tea room or a puppet theatre, from Bermuda to Moscow. Now, in the latest Safe Haven field guide, Harry Rosehill catalogues all the multifarious uses of an ageless transport classic.

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The last Routemaster to ply a proper London bus route retired to the garage back in 2005. But over 15 years later, this indestructible bus still pops up everywhere!

It's just that nowadays merely in London Routemasters are wedding buses, Ghost Buses, afternoon tea buses, mobile yoghurt stalls on the South Bank... And elsewhere, all over the world, they have found new homes and been put to the most unlikely but serendipitous uses.

So now, Harry Rosehill catalogues all the possible uses of a Routemaster bus, from a tea room in Essex to promoting a circus in Russia to an office in Bermuda, from offering bra-fitting facilities to a history of the potato, not to mention making history during the Iraq War as a Human Shield in Baghdad. Along the way he explains how Routemasters were built to last so long, why they've become so cherished, and footbrake valves are so hard to come by.

Funny, surprising and touching, Routemasters of the Universe is an alternative history of a true London icon, and a celebration of ingenuity, determination and the sheer variety of human life.