Routemaster Sid Waddell was once a bus conductor before he swapped all the fun of the fare for a dartboard.

Long before Reg Varney was let loose on vintage sitcom On The Buses, voice of darts Waddell was a real-life clippie, whose favourite trick was to ding-ding and hold tight on the "ghost bus" from Ashington to Newcastle.

In the days when you could smoke tabs on the top deck but roller skates were banned, the Geordie bard was a ghost bus star.

As he prepared for his shifts in the Sky Sports commentary box at Alexandra Palace for the Ladbrokes.com PDC World Championship, Waddell cast his mind back half a century.

He said: "I found out, a fewdays before Christmas, that I'd been awarded a scholarship to study history at St John's College, Cambridge, starting the following October, so I had nine months to kill.

"A mate of mine told me there was a job going in Ashington as a bus conductor, so I went for an interview - omitting to tell them that I didn't really want to make a 25-year career out of it.

"I was sent for training at the bus depot 50 yards behind the Gallowgate End at Newcastle United, and I was taught everything about how to run a double decker bus and collect the fares by a guy who was a dead ringer for Blakey, the inspector from the TV series On The Buses.

"He had a sergeant major's moustache, he was called Cecil Mosey, and you had to learn on the back, holding the pole at the foot of the stairwell.

"The rules included nobody on board if they were too inebriated, nobody with bulky luggage - like six foot planks or washing machines - and no roller skates.

I was fast at calculating the fares, so after six weeks training I was put on my own bus at Ashington and you handed in the money bag with all the fares you collected at the end of your shift.

"A woman conductor showed me how the bosses liked it - lots of nice pound notes and half crowns, and as little copper and shrapnel as possible.

"So when a passenger gets on, asks for a two-bob fare and hands you a pound note, she told me to give them a mountain of copper 'because it's all legal tender, kidder' and you'd get all these looks.

"But the best game of the lot was the one played by drivers who used to run what we called the 'ghost bus' from Ashington to the Haymarket in Newcastle.

"We would approach the Great North Road from Bedlington and pick up the A1, where all the buses coming down from Scotland and Morpeth were heading into the city.

"After dark he would turn off all the lights in the bus to make it look like we were running empty back to the depot - so we didn't have to stop to pick up any more passengers. We left them waiting for the buses coming down from Berwick."

His stint on the buses as a 19-year-old may have lasted only six months, but his eyes sparkled as he recalled the daredevils who jumped on board from an arch over the war memorial and the driver who overturned his bus on Sheepwash Bank, just outside Ashington, and "jumped ship" - although nobody was hurt.

And by the time he moved on to Cambridge, Waddell had cheerfully "broken nearly every rule in the book".

Fast forward 50 years to Ally Pally, and he can't see past Phil 'The Power' Taylor claiming a 15th world title.

"Taylor broke the world record with a three-dart average of 111 in last year's final against Raymond van Barneveld," added Waddell.

"And he's playing so well there's a strong chance he could reach 120 this year."

It may take aliens landing in nearby Muswell Hill to stop Taylor, so residents of north London take note: If there's something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call - ghost bus stars?

Sid Waddell will be commentating for Sky Sports at the world championship.