LONDON — The double-decker bus pulled to a stop at a red light. The driver rolled down his window and raised his bubble gun. As he pulled the trigger, a steady flow of bubbles rose into the air, floating off in different directions. Outside, a man stopped in his tracks. And started dancing in the street.
He took “a shower in bubbles,” recalled Ricki Reid, the driver. It’s one of Reid’s favorite memories from a work ritual that he has carried out for the past six years and has made him something of a celebrity more recently. Usually, the stream of bubbles stops pedestrians in their tracks. Some take out their phones, others smile at the sight. Some have been brought to tears.
“I think that people, when they see a bubble, it triggers something in them,” he said in an interview Thursday. “It triggers something in their soul and that trigger, it brings joy.”
Reid, 54, drives the 106 bus, which operates from London’s Finsbury Park Station to Whitechapel, the neighborhood where he was born, and where children chant, “It’s the bubble bus, it’s the bubble bus,” when they see his vehicle coming.
His hobby has also found fans on TikTok and Instagram, where Reid is widely admired. People share videos of his bubble bus and leave comments.
“Get you a bus driver who brings this much joy to your journey,” reads the caption of one video.
Get you a bus driver who brings this much joy to your journey! #bubbles #dalston #blackboyjoy #tf #BusDriver #waterloo #London #londonbus #Joy
Another TikTok user took to the platform in 2024 to say that she was having a bad day when she came across Reid. “I love this guy and he made me love the world again,” she wrote, calling Reid a “warrior of happiness.”
Had a totally crap day and then this warrior of happiness is just casually pumping out bubbles of the driver window of his number 76 bus cheering me up on hus way home. I love this guy and he made me love the world again #joy #happiness #dalston #londontown #eastlondon #silly #goodnews
Reid was standing in the supermarket after a shift years ago when he saw a small bottle, marked “reduced to clear.”
“That’s how it started,” he said, adding that initially his idea was to just blow bubbles out of the bottle. But he soon ran into issues. “I can’t be opening and closing this bottle all the time,” he said. “So that’s when I got the idea of the gun.”
Reid says that as well as being a bus driver and a father of six, he is also now something of an expert on bubble guns, bubble fluid and rechargeable batteries. Because bubble-blowing daily around the city takes some planning. It’s a commitment.
“There’s a lot of preparation involved,” Reid said. “The one I’m using now, I think it’s one of the best because it spits out so many bubbles and it’s rechargeable as well,” he said proudly.
It’s not just children who enjoy the bubbles, which he pumps inside the driver’s cabin and lets float into the main part of the bus as well as sending them out of the window.
“I think that actually adults like it more,” he said, adding that on several occasions over the years the bubbles have sparked an array of emotions.
He recalled a regular rider telling him that she was having a “really bad day,” and that seeing the bubbles go by made her feel grateful. As she spoke, he recalled, she started to cry. “I had to come out of the bus and comfort her.”
The bubbles, Reid says, are “like therapy.”
On another occasion about three years ago, a cabdriver stopped him after seeing bubbles floating overhead.
“Wow, bro, you don’t know what kind of day I’ve been having,” he told Reid, covering his face to hide his tears.
London is not a real place
Shoutout to @jahfire247 for bringing so much joy to London. #london #hackney #fyp #londonbusdriver
Each night before his shift, Reid ensures the rechargeable battery packs are charged and packed as well as preparing some spares.
“I’m using it constantly,” he said. “It goes all day.”
Reid estimates that he has tried and tested around 40 bubble guns in the past six years.
His managers, Reid says, are supportive of his mission to spread cheer. “As long as I’m within the health and safety guidelines and not being ridiculous driving along doing it, it’s all good, I think,” he said. Hackney Mayor Caroline Woodley described Reid as one of the “cheerful characters” who brighten the borough.
When Reid is not at work, he can be found blowing bubbles in the park. Or biking through the city, one hand on his handlebars, the other holding his bubble gun and spraying a trail of bubbles behind him. (Interviewed on his day off, Reid said his plan for the day was to head out to the post office to pick up another bubble gun he had ordered.)
He said he is proud of the positive and “contagious” impact his bubbles are having.
“A simple thing like a bubble, it makes someone smile. That’s where the power is,” he said. “You take that smile and someone else has got it now, then someone else has got it. And it keeps going round and round and around so everyone’s smiling.”
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