by Alex Claridge
An awesome labour of love, a monument to one man’s determination, a testament to what can be achieved when you put your mind to something.

Any one of these can be used to describe Daniel Bond’s incredible work in converting a double-decker bus into a home.

The 28-year-old from Canterbury has spent four months and £11,000 turning his vision into a reality - a reality consisting of two bedrooms, a kitchen, lounge, bar and bathroom.

Central to his efforts was not having the money to buy a house and not wanting to pay the high rents in the city.

Daniel and his girlfriend Stacey Drinkwater, 20, live and sleep in the 1991 Leyland Olympia, which was used on bus routes in Dublin and East Sussex.

He said: “I just thought it would be a cheap way of living as I couldn’t afford to buy a house and didn’t want to rent somewhere and pay someone else’s mortgage for them.

“It has taken me the last four months to do. I’m the sort of person who really gets stuck into things and go for them big time.

“I’ve seen some other bus conversions and they are immense, but they have cost a lot of money and I’ve also seen some which are absolute rubbish.
“But the whole point of mine was it being affordable for us.”

Daniel, a self-employed auto electrician who also works at The Phoenix pub in Old Dover Road, bought the bus from internet bidding site eBay for £3,000.

He collected it from Manchester in December and got a friend to drive it from the north-west.

Since then, he has spent £8,000 kitting it out on the outskirts of the city.

It has two double bedrooms, a bathroom and toilet, bar, lounge and a kitchen, which Daniel reckons is bigger than those in many people’s homes.

He hopes to have his bus driver’s licence by August so that he and Stacey, who works at Whitstable bowling alley, can take a trip to Cornwall where he grew up.

The heating runs on diesel while the rest of the bus is powered by battery.

Daniel added: “It’s been a real labour of love.”