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 50 of the most ingenious and endearing uses of a Routemaster bus, from a tea room in Essex to a promotional vehicle for a circus in Moscow to a McDonald’s in Germany, and from a bra-fitting showroom to explaining the life-cycle of a 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 why footbrake valves are now in such short supply.
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.
