After Arriva announced it was giving up three of its routes on Sheppey, John Nurden decided to buy a £4.80 day ticket to ride the buses to find out what it was like.

Here's how he got on...

Sheppey is a tight-knit island community - especially when it comes to buses.

Passengers welcome a chat and are happy to impart knowledge about the "bad buses" which arrive late, if at all, and complain about questionable train connections. But woe betide any outsider who threatens to take them away.

When Arriva decided unilaterally to hand back three routes, the 360 and 361 which link Leysdown, Minster, Queenborough and Rushenden with Sheerness, and the 367 which travels to isolated Warden Point, there was uproar.

"They can't do that. It's illegal," fumed Terry Dalton from Minster. "There's got to be buses. It's the law. How will people without cars get from Minster or Leysdown to Sheerness? Not everyone can afford a taxi. That's got to be £20 to £30."

Judith Cruickshank from Eastchurch was equally concerned. "What's going to happen to the school kids?" she asked. "My daughter catches the Arriva bus every morning."

Pamela Berry, who suffers from poor eyesight, admitted: "Some drivers can be very rude. I can't always see the writing on the posters and they get impatient."

But despite the complaints, they were all adamant that buses are, on the whole, a good thing and worth fighting to save. And they weren't backward in coming forward with their own solutions.

Terry mused: "Perhaps if they arrived on time more people would use them."

Judith, who noted several pensioners were using free bus passes, suggested: "Free passes are a bad idea. But pensioners should be allowed to travel half-price. That would give bus companies more money."

Pamela also thought buses to the eastern end of the Island should run later. "There are many people from Leysdown who work in Sheerness but can't get home because the last bus leaves at 6pm," she said.

So what is it like to ride a bus in 2021? It had been decades since I last stepped aboard. Once you have a car you tend to leave things like that behind.

But I took up the challenge and downloaded a sheaf of timetables the night before so I would know exactly where I was going. I also armed myself with the Arriva app which is fine if you have a smart phone and know how to use it.

It also happens to be quite difficult to read in bright sunshine but for would-be passengers it is the only way to plan travel as Arriva has taken down all the timetables once stuck to bus stops.

It has also stopped distributing printed versions to shops and libraries. I have my suspicions this is a cunning plot by the German-owned travel giant to secretly get back at us for Brexit and to make catching a bus even more complicated.

Meanwhile, my best-laid plans for a trouble-free day on public transport soon went out the window when my double-decker, a 360 caught from outside Tesco in Sheerness, took a completely different route to the one I had been expecting.

I take my hat off to anyone who can work out which bus goes where. I know regulars have it off pat and memorise the timetable down to the second but for me it became a glorious magical mystery tour.

The first hurdle was to pay. I had been told drivers prefer the correct change but, having no idea how much a single fare costs these days, I opted for the £4.80 all-day travel ticket which covers the whole of Sheppey, Sittingbourne and Faversham.

I bought it using the app and waved my phone at the driver who peered at it and signalled me to get on board for the start of the adventure.

I made my way upstairs and breathed a sigh of relief when I discovered it was virtually empty. It made bagging the front seat where I could 'drive' the bus like I did on the school run so much easier. I'd also forgotten what a delight it is to peer into people's front gardens or look down on car drivers.

There was much to see as the driver deftly weaved around parked cars and detoured into the grounds of Sheppey Community Hospital where I was horrified to see a replica 360 heading towards us on the single-track road. I involuntarily breathed in as two buses scraped past.

Heading out of Sheerness we picked up a couple of gentlemen who sat somewhere behind me. Despite it being just after noon there was a strong smell of alcohol accompanying them. During the ride there was unexpected crashing sound from their direction which, being English, I ignored.

Only at journey's end at Leysdown did the driver appear up the stairs to pick up a broken beer bottle from under one of the seats. I felt guilty I had not noticed it.

The bus had to perform a three-point turn in the middle of the road to turn round as the former Leysdown bus depot is now sold and boarded up.

On the way back to Sheerness I snatched some photos of the bright yellow rape fields against the blue sky at Eastchurch and then came over all woozy. The lurching about had made me a little seasick and the heat of the sun through the glass left me all hot and bothered. A jacket and a coat had proved overkill on the sun-kissed Isle of Sheppey.

I made an executive decision to skip attempting the afternoon school run because an elderly couple warned me against it.

"We got on it by mistake once," admitted Brenda Blaber, 74, and her husband David. "We had to stand. There was no room and the kids upstairs were making such a noise. They should be supervised. We felt really sorry for the driver. He deserved a medal."

They added: "What's needed is a service from Leysdown to Neats Court retail park at Queenborough where there are proper shops like Morrisons, B&M and Sports Direct. That would make a fortune, providing the buses don't break down."

There was a route which did exactly that until last year when Morrisons gave up subsiding it. It had been part of the deal to build the supermarket in the first place. I can't help feeling axing the subsidy was a little short-sighted.

Michael Blee, a veteran campaigner for better public transport on the Island welcomed news this week that Sittingbourne firm Chalkwell was taking on two of the three Arriva routes.

He said: "I think there is every success in a company which knows the Island well. Arriva didn't and wasn't interested in it. I remember when they tried to introduce card-reading machines and picked Elmley Nature Reserve for the launch but didn't realise they couldn't get a bus there. They had no idea."

He added: "We also suggested routes they should look at which were needed and would have been used but they never listened. I don't think they even wanted to make a profit."

Arriva says it remains committed to the rest of Kent and other parts of Swale and will continue to run buses from its Gillingham and Maidstone depots. But it says it will close the Sheerness bus depot next to the railway station with its crew rest room and giant bus wash.

Fellow travel campaigner Linda Brinklow insisted: "We need to encourage people back on the buses, trains and their bikes and out of their cars."

To be fair, riding on the buses turned out to be a great way to spend a day, if you don't have to be anywhere at any particular time, although it may have less appeal on a cold, wet Monday morning trying to get to work.

But where else can you get unlimited travel across Swale for less than a fiver? Next time you have a spare day I urge you to try it.

Hold very tight!

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