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I got the message the other day when I walked into the ­office and someone had mocked up a photo of my head on Roy Cropper’s body.

Later I heard someone shout “tickets please” as I walked past. Followed by a muttered: “I hate you Butler.”

The mickey-takers can have their fun but I know that buses, as well as being an inherently sexy subject, are important.

There were 4.36 billion bus journeys in the year ending March 2018. Yes, I knew that without looking.

Incredibly, a quarter of all those journeys are commutes.

That means an awful lot of people are relying on buses to get to work.

And one thing they are, when you set foot outside London, is unreliable. So what to do about it?

The solution for a lot of people is straightforward – put buses back into public ownership.

In Greater Manchester there is a large-scale campaign on the issue with events taking place this week.

It’s easy to see why.

Eighty per cent of all public transport journeys in Greater Manchester are on the bus. But since 2010, eight million miles of routes have been cut.

And that, of course, has hit the ­poorest people there worst of all.

New research shows that people in low-paid areas of the city say specifically, SPECIFICALLY, that transport stops them getting to work rather than helping.

The same study showed that even if you can get on a bus, high fares and unreliability mean they’re not practical.

And problems with the network mean a commute of more than three hours, which is more than Jobcentre Plus’s definition of reasonable.

I would never normally rely on Jobcentre Plus to define ­reasonable but they’re right on this one.

Some of the case studies from Manchester show the problems.

(Image: PA)

Maria from Salford: “My journey to work takes two buses. On Saturdays there are no early buses for first part of journey. I ­either have to walk to Piccadilly or take a taxi.”

Sandra from Eccles: “One dark, wet and cold evening recently after a long day of travelling I wanted to be at home for my tea.

“I was standing at a bus stop for around 45 minutes. In that time there should have been two buses at least to my destination but there wasn’t.”

I guarantee that if you are from ­anywhere outside London, that has happened to you many, many times.

They are not the most dramatic ­stories you’ll hear, but they sum up the sheer frustration of being let down by a terrible network.

So in Manchester they are getting organised – Better Buses for Greater Manchester wants the buses back in public hands. But it will be tough.

When Tyne and Wear considered re-regulating their bus network, private bus companies used legal action to stop them.

Expect the same in Manchester.

Because private companies in the North West had 18.4 million reasons to hang on to ownership last year.

Can you guess what they were?