Danny, when you call it a tea swindle, was it a swindle or a Swindle? I only ask because £1000 seems a prodigious amount from such a mundane and unglamourous source. Perhaps it was not from the sale of cups of the stuff but profits from tea futures, brilliantly accumulated by outsmarting the market?
At any rate it was a handy pot to have for unpredictable expenses such as damaged buses and maces. Given the barrister like flooring of the wretched Bus Manager, I can't help wondering if he might not have got his own back had he known of the slight contretemps involving "a Stick with an 'orses 'ead 'andle, the finest that Woolworth's could sell", or words to that effect.
"Well surely", he would have asked unctuously, "you must have had it insured?"