'It's in his blood': veteran driver signals last stop before re-tyre-ment

"The ultimate quiet achiever," one of the driver's said, at the edge of the commotion of television cameras, colleagues and family who had come to the Hamilton bus depot all for one man.

He was talking to a duty officer, who was responsible for ringing down the list of off-duty drivers to find replacements - often in the early hours of the morning - when another driver fell ill or was unavailable.

It could be a thankless task. No one liked to be called into work before sunrise when they had gone to bed that night expecting a day off. But there was one name that was always at the top of the list - one that he could rely on in a pinch.

Trevor Lightfoot liked the help people. He could not help it.

It was not that he wanted to be called in. But he felt an obligation every time the phone rang.

"It's public transport," Mr Lightfoot said, emphasising the 'public'.

"If you're in bed and they ring up at 4am, and say a driver did not show up, and ask if you can come in, you're sort of obliged."

"If you're catching a train to Sydney and you have your suitcases and you had to catch that bus, and then it didn't come, you're stuck."

"You don't have to do it," he said of always answering the phone. "You can do it, and afterwards you can get abused because you were five minutes late."

But these inconveniences never bothered him. There was a reason he was Mr Speed-dial No.1 for decades.

"It's in his blood," the duty officer had said quietly, certain that the conversation was out of earshot of the cameras and the party. "He was born to be a bus driver."

They had been commiserating that, after 25 years on the city's buses - six days a week (except Wednesdays, which were for his grandson) - Mr Lightfoot was retiring from the job he had wanted since he was a boy.

"We're going to miss him," Phillip Bridge, a duty officer said. "I don't have another Trevor. There's no one else like Trevor."

On Friday, long-tenured transport workers, who had years of practiced professional stoicism, wept. Many joked that in the past 25 years, he had spent more time at the depot than he had at home.

His wife, Heather, did not mind. It was the way that he was. For as long as she had known him (they became sweethearts in 1973 and married in '75), Mrs Lightfoot had never known her husband to be idle for long.

"He'll always find something to do," she said. "Trevor's not a 'sitter'."

Mr Lightfoot is a gently spoken man in his 70s. He had made a point in his driving career of speaking to every passenger as they boarded. It was the polite and proper thing to do, he said, but he was sure that it had a defusing effect on anyone who was likely to cause trouble on the trip.

The buses took all kinds - and not every passenger was respectful. He had been sworn at, abused, shouted at, but he still greeted every rider in his patient, direct way.

"As soon as you speak to someone," he said of the worst of his interactions. "It throws them. They're used to 'aggro', but it's important to do because if you start an argument, you can't win."

"If there's an interaction, and it's a bad one, well then it's in your head. And you're driving. But instead of driving, you're thinking about it, and then it becomes unsafe. That's how you'll drive straight past the next stop."

Mr Lightfoot had, his duty officers boasted, an impeccable record. He was safe behind the wheel, and diligent; the result of a life spent with his mind on the details.

Mr Lightfoot had wanted to drive the buses since riding the old double-deckers to the beach as a boy.

He took an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner making tail shafts for the Newcastle State Dockyard before it closed in the 1980s.

Getting a job on the buses was competitive. Only a few positions came up each year. There was a hierarchy in the meals room in those days, he said, and drivers with long careers in the city's network was the norm.

He drove coaches for a few years, before finally getting behind the wheel in the job he wanted in 2001.

Jimmy, Mr Lightfoot's grandson, had been taking work experience shifts with his dad in the joinery on Fridays. His dad was tied to his job, too. Jimmy reckoned he might even work harder than Mr Lightfoot.

It was a family thing.

"I go fishing with him," he said of his grandfather with the same directness that seemed hereditary. "And he works."

Asked how he thought Mr Lightfoot would handle retirement, he did not hesitate: "He'll be back on Sunday."