It’s an astonishing picture.
Taken from the back of the bus there are rows of cloth capped steel workers on a bus with the heavy haze of cigarette smoke hanging above them.
It’s posted to a Facebook group called It’s All About Sheffield In’it.
The shot is of a long lost Britain travelling to work without a mobile phone in sight.
Members of the Sheffield Facebook group quickly warmed to the image.
“Great depiction of the early days and how society has changed,” one said.
“Wow what a photo! I can smell it,” wrote another.
One group member was prompted to recall the distinct smell of soluble oil which used to hang over Sheffield in the 1960s. It came from a cutting lubricant in engineering factories, he said, and it hung to the clothes of people travelling home. He recalled the pride as an apprentice smelling of it.
Another remembered the route.
“Number 103 Bus out of Hackenthorpe was Vulcan Road if my memory serves me correctly,” another added filling in some recollection-dredged gaps.
One Facebook group member recalled how she used to catch that Hackenthorpe bus sometimes. Sitting upstairs meant you could smoke.
All these memories are genuine and recalled with warmth.
But the image isn’t real. It’s been made by AI.
“Bloody AI again,” one person points out. “No central aisle, how’s the conductor going to take fares?”
For two minutes scrolling this thread I was taken in myself by the power of the imagery and the power of people’s memories giddily remembered.
But of course, there’s no central aisle. How will the conductor get around and people climb on board?
It is, in effect, the bus to nowhere where like the Hotel California it is impossible to get off.
It never existed yet the memories of the people who recall it absolutely do.
That’s where we are with AI images in 2024.
I was forewarned I suppose, but as a former bus conductor, albeit in London on Routemasters, I spotted the central aisle or lack of it pretty quickly. Apart from the conductor, the passengers would have had to climb over each other to get to a seat or get off.
The smoke did hang like that though. I remember picking up a bus load in heavy rain at Great Portland Street in the dark, heading home to Camden after a day at work. They all lit up as soon as they reached the top floor. Full pea souper, mingled with sodden overcoats starting to warm up. I suggested maybe they could have only lit half the cigarettes and passively smoked the fug.
As a non smoker I was acutely aware of the cream ceiling on the top deck and the ;little gobbets of brown that looked like spray from a rogue coke can, but were actually tar deposits. If my crew cut grew too long the tips acquired a lacquer finish.