Ricki Reid wasn’t handing out tips or empty smiles. He was handing out bubbles.
From his cab on route 106, between Finsbury Park and Whitechapel, this father of six turned every journey into a small spectacle: he would pull out his bubble gun and fill the bus with floating spheres for the children of north and east London, who already knew him as “the bubble driver”. It all started by accident, when he spotted a discounted bottle in a supermarket. He became so beloved that Hackney Council interviewed him, the video made it to Instagram, and from there it jumped all the way to The Washington Post.
Now Go Ahead London, the company that employs him, has banned him from continuing to do so. The official reason: “safety considerations”. The company insists that Reid remains a valued member of the team, but for many passengers that explanation sounds more like an excuse than a real justification. Bus 106 is still running. The bubbles, for now, are not.
