Phil,
Birmingham City Transport was a great employer in the city and I'm sure many of us have family connections with the buses. As Roy said in his opening post, it was a way of life for the staff, who sometimes worked several turns, sometimes without enough time to go home between turns. This is where the staff canteen came in at the garage. After the war my Dad worked as a conductor and then a driver on the trams from Moseley Road depot. He then became a bus driver and worked at Yardley Wood depot, then Selly Oak depot and finally Harborne depot, which I remember best during the mid to late 1950s. He finished on the buses around 1959. There were a lot of sports events and as you know, BCT had their stadium at Wheelers Lane, which still exists.
During his time at Harborne he mostly worked the Outer Circle route, which was fed from Harborne, Perry Barr and Acocks Green depots. I often went with him to Harborne depot from home in King's Heath and have lots of memory of the pay office, mess room and the canteen, where they played cards and snooker or could get something to eat and drink between turns. I often used to meet my Dad's bus in the early evening at Vicarage Road by All Saint's church, to bring his sandwiches. They also had a mobile canteen which used to be parked at this location in the evening, so crews could get tea, cake etc.
I also travelled the entire outer circle route during school holidays and the routine of pegging the bundy clock and the crew standing drinking their tea is evoked by this picture at Stockland Green. I can't be sure, but the driver about to climb back into the cab looks very much like my Dad.
Brian