A Matter of Opinion

I want to set you all a poser. I suspect that many of us who contribute to these pages are of a similar age, what used to be called baby boomers. I'm 1946 vintage and I grew up not far from NGT's Percy Main depot. I first became interested in buses at the age of about 5 or 6. Newcastle in those days was a bus spotter's paradise. The Corporation buses were now yellow, but the fleet was anything but standard. They had AEC, Daimler and Leyland, bodies came from Alexander, Leyland, Massey, MCW, NCB, Park Royal, Roe, Weymann, Willowbrook, and probably a couple more I've forgotten about, and on top of all that we had an assortment of those wonderful things called Trolleybuses. We had United, which were mainly Bristol with ECW bodies, but included various odd balls acquired through takeovers. The NGT Group with their individual names and liveries, and a seemingly endless variety of vehicles. Northern, Tynemouth and Wakefields shared the red livery, Gateshead were chocolate and cream, SDO, blue and white, and Tyneside green and cream. We had the smaller independents, or not so small in the case of OK and Venture, there was Armstrong, Primrose, Wright Bros, all of whom ran services into Newcastle, and no doubt several more that I have also lost track of, but for the most part they all had one thing in common, Pride! In general, the vehicles were well turned out, and well cared for, I won't dwell on what happened when NBC and the PTE's were formed, that ground has already been well covered.

Your answer to my question would normally be influenced by where you grew up. So to coin a modern euphemism 'think outside the box' were you on holiday, or perhaps on a school trip outside your area and you saw a bus that has remained in your memory? In 1953, I was taken to Blackpool 'I remember the year because the FA Cup was on display in the Winter Gardens' what I remember were the unique full front Burlingham bodied Leyland PD Blackpool Corporation buses, perhaps not the prettiest buses I've ever seen, but one of the those I remember the most. Smartest livery? I have a lot to choose from in my area, but for those outside my vote would go to Western SMT. Coaches are an entirely different matter, and perhaps something that Peter may like to come back to at a later date.

Ronnie Hoye

23/05/14 - 17:56

Yes, Ronnie - like you, I'm a baby-boomer and became fascinated with buses in my own area of Leeds in the 1950s, purely because of the wealth of bus and coach types to be seen (see my effort at an article "Buses Galore on Route 54" in the archive of this site).
You had trolleybuses, but we had trams (the love of which remains with me to this day, and some of the (foreign) fruits of my labours can been seen on https://www.flickr.com/photos/tramfan/
Back to buses - holidays to Aunts in Bexleyheath (Kent) and Ewell (Surrey) opened my eyes to London Transport (buses and trolleybuses) which, although perhaps "standardised" were, for me, totally different. I loved the Country Area and Green Line green RTs which looked far more exotic than the usual red versions. Similarly, a few trips with my Dad to Liverpool to see the East Lancs Road trams on their express reserved tracks were matched by my being amazed at seeing Crossville's green Bristols which didn't seem right to me being used to West Yorkshire's red versions.
However, the most fascinating visions were had when we visited relative in Hinckley, Leicestershire where the incredible Midland Red SONs, FEDDs, ONCs, AD2s, D5s and S10s seemed to be everywhere. To me, they were totally different to anything I had seen before (and remain so). It staggers me that Midland Red has such a bad name amongst bus enthusiasts - I must be in a minority!

Paul Haywood

24/05/14 - 07:54

Like Ronnie I am a baby boomer (1952 vintage) Growing up in Leeds the trams stick in my mind my birthday treat in 1959 my birthday treat was being taken to see the last Leeds trams Around the same time I was taken to Gt Yaremouth on holiday where I vividly remember the utilities (Guy Arabs) with varnished wooden seats and the buses with revolving advert screens in the lower saloon.
I was a regular visitor to Sheffield and was very taken with the Atlanteans or as I dubbed them back to front buses.
Fifty plus years later the LCT fleet of my teen years remains my all time favourites Oh to have a Tardis!

Chris Hough

24/05/14 - 08:37

I have to confess that I also belong to that "baby-boomer" generation, now drawing a pension. Bus enthusiasm started for me in the late 1950's, when I began using them for school journeys. Portsmouth TD4s, Crossleys (still with original turbo-transmitters at first), and the "latest" PD2's with Orion bodies, plus the trolleybuses, were the main ones. Also include Southdown with rebodied TD3s, 4s and 5s, a mix of Guy utilities both covered and open-top, plus PD1s and 2s, and then the arrival of the first PD3's, later known as Queen Mary's. A visit to the coach park behind the Clarence Pier fairground would be fascinating. There was a wonderful mix of older and new coaching stock, plus RTs from London. I recall a Sentinel coach; a Bedford SB bodied by Owen (which had been featured in Buses Illustrated's Picture View (how educational those centre pages were!), and a new design ECW body on a Bristol coach. Also in those days my parents had use of a car, and visited stately homes and similar places of interest at the weekends. This allowed me to see most of the major operators along the south coast, and some in the Midlands, too. One of the most memorable sights was on a visit to Warwick Castle. We were leaving the town. Looking through the car's back window, I saw a three-axle coach! It was a Leyland Tiger (I presume not a Titanic), with a shapely half-cab body. I no longer have a note of the registration, but I remember realising that it was a London reg, and probably one originating with the City Coach Company. It was painted in two shades of green, but I could not gain any ownership details as both car and coach were moving away from a roundabout in different directions. My biggest regret is that I didn't risk a snap of it through the back window on my trusty Brownie 127 camera. It might not have been a star shot, but I guess I should have tried! These days, I have a collection of models to remind me of the buses and coaches of that era, and of course the memories themselves. This site, too, brings much pleasure, with the varied contributions by one and all.

Michael Hampton

25/05/14 - 09:31

I was born in 1947. By the time I was three we were living on the #9 route between Ashton under Lyne and Rochdale. There was variety aplenty in livery, chassis and bodies provided by Ashton, Oldham and Rochdale. More variety could be found in the town centre with Manchester, SHMD, North Western, Stockport, Sheffield and Yorkshire Traction adding to the melange. I well remember the smell of hot diesel engines around Ashton Market place which then served as a bus station and my fascination with the vehicles, the favourite of which were Ashton's all Leyland LTC registered PD2s which, later I found out, were new about the time my interest started.
As I learned to read, destinations such as Summit, Haughton Green and Derker interested me and I persuaded my Dad to take me to those places. By 1954 he was covering most of the country as a rep for a small firm based in Harrow. Regular trips to London introduced me to the classy order that was the public face of LT. Travelling down the A6 the first Country Bus livery would often be seen around Luton and it wasn't much further before a red RT would be seen. Harrow had its share of RLHs which added variety to the scene. My Dad bought me a London Transport route map which I studied and that laid the foundations of my knowledge of the area which I can still navigate without a map sixty years on.
Being able to travel around the country with my Dad during school holidays exposed me to most of the UK's operators by the time I got to grammar school. Favourite fleets away from home territory were Devon General, Royal Blue, Southdown, Birch Bros, South Wales, Newport, Black and White, BMMO, Birmingham, Walsall, Bradford, Sheffield, United, Newcastle, Alexander Northern, Western SMT and Alexander Bluebird.
I found most Tilling fleets fairly boring until I was well into my teens but Crosville was well within range of home on solo journeys and I made a study of its numbering and route system by the time I was fourteen.
By the time I was nine we moved to Stockport with a good side view of the approach to Manchester Airport. I had already been a train spotter since the age of six and added plane spotting to my hobbies, civil air transport becoming my main hobby. In later life this gave me the grounding for a successful conference business based on aviation security, airport operation and air traffic control, but buses gave me my initial interest in transport and even today's bland offerings, and here in south west Ireland a dearth of variety, still throw up the odd gem from time to time to keep the interest in the current scene alive, but it is what I remember from decades ago and the contributions of others on this site that are my main bus interest today.

Phil Blinkhorn

27/05/14 - 06:47

Ronnies' question about the where and when factors that may have had some influence on a deep interest in buses has made me think hard about why I have an "obsession" quoting my better half, who is very tolerant.
I am a pre-baby boomer born in 1941 in West Bradford. Our house was within easy walking distance of two Corporation trolley bus routes. These routes were the No 31 service to Allerton and the No 7 service to Thornton, both to the City Centre at different termini but sharing a common section of wires from Four Lane Ends to City Road. The services were operated in the forties and early fifties by AEC 661T trolley buses built in 1934/35 and based at Duckworth Lane depot. These trolley buses had a double reduction differential drive and emitted a loud groaning/wailing noise when running at any speed. Contrasting with this trolley bus noise were the West Yorkshire Road Car Company Bristols with Gardner 5LW engines operating a faster service to Denholm and Keighley via Thornton but with higher fares than on the trolley buses. Bus noise was something I have been aware of from a very early age. In 1954 we moved house to Burley-in-Wharfedale were I had an enhanced exposure to West Yorkshire buses, as they operated the School Special services to/from Otley Grammar School and the joy of an independent operator Exors Samuel Ledgard who had many services through Burley and Otley. I rode on these buses on their service to Leeds. I do believe it was trolley bus sounds from a very early age that played a major part in forming my deep interest in buses. Needless to say my interest is on half-cab front engine buses is preferably before 1960 but I love this web site as many of the bus photos posted meet my needs and interest.

Richard Fieldhouse

28/05/14 - 09:20

Well 1950 was a good year. The BBC Light Programme first broadcast the daily children's radio feature Listen with Mother, Ealing Studios released the film The Blue Lamp, introducing the character of PC George Dixon to our screens, 'The Eagle' comic first appeared, featuring Dan Dare and Captain Pugwash, Post-War soap rationing ended, and OH YES - I was born (along with my twin brother), at Boundary Park Hospital in Oldham.
Now I know that I am not as old as many of you on this site, but still consider myself a Baby Boomer, and have many memories of transport in my early years.
Phil Blinkhorn has already mentioned my home area of Oldham, but Saddleworth (YES that area famous for the Moors Murders) was where I was brought up.
Operators in the area were of course North Western Road Car Co Ltd with their Albion Aberdonians, S.H.M.D. Joint Board with the centre entrance Atkinsons, Manchester City Transport with nothing special but a nice clean livery, Hanson of Huddersfield with their re-bodied AECs, with there one service, and, not to mention the Express Services of the Tyne Tees/Mersey Pool with coaches, and sometimes buses, from NWRCC, Yorkshire Woollen District, LUT, United Automobile Services, Northern General Transport and West Yorkshire RCC. Then there was the undertaking where I was to start my Transport career in 1968, Oldham Corporation Passenger Transport Department. As an aside another famous Transport man lived in Saddleworth for a number of years, some of you may have heard of him, one GG Hilditch. I was to meet him later in my career when I got an interview with Leicester City Transport, but I did not get the appointment, but that is another tale.
In 1950 Oldham took delivery of 2 batches of Leyland PD2/3s with Roe H31/25R bodies (EBU868-81 and FBU639-48) and 2 batches of Crossley's, 4, SD42/7s (FBU821-24) with Roe B32F bodies, and 4 double deck Crossley DD42/8s with Crossley's own H30/26R bodywork. 5 of these vehicles were to be still in service when I started work there, these being 341,342,345,349, and 360, and were to be transferred to the new SELNEC PTE in November 1969 (re-numbered 5241,5242,5245,5249, and 5360 respectively. So to go slightly further afield, in the late 1950s the annual Wakes Holidays were taken at that well known Lancashire resort of Southport (my Father was a Foreman in the mill, only the workers went to Blackpool).
Here of course there were the 8 exWD Bedford QLs, delivered in 1947 with Rimmer, Harrison and Sutherland OB23F (re-seated to OB24F in 1954) bodies which ran a service along the beach from Ainsdale to Southport, it was very a breezy ride, full of sand in the eyes. Of course Oldham and Southport were linked in that the body off Southport No.117 was transferred to Oldham 229 in 1965. The main Southport fleet was of course similar to Oldham in consisting of Leyland PD2s with a few Crossley's and Daimler's thrown in for good measure.
No visit to Southport would have been complete with out a trip on the Pier Railway (or could you call it a tram (?), the 'Silver Belle', which was built by local engineer Harry Barlow.

Holidays to Southport ceased in the early 1960s when my Father died, and subsequent holidays were taken in the Isle of Man, which was full of Transport interest and on the Clyde where 'Cruising' on the Clyde Steamers of the Caledonian Steam Packet Co., became the order of the day. There are of course memories of the buses of Clyde Coast Services, A1, AA, Western SMT, and Garelochhead Coach Services, plus the buses of Glasgow Transport on a visit to that City.
But those tales will have to wait (thanks goodness I heard you cry) for another time.

Stephen Howarth

28/05/14 - 15:55

I have a long-standing (almost lifelong) interest in most forms of transport. My parents used to tell me it stemmed from my days in a pushchair, when I could detect the sound and smell of a steamroller - and they were STEAM rollers in the late 1940's and early 1950's long before they could, and I would urge them to better efforts so I could see the beast. It's just progressed from there . . .
No cure, I'm happy to say!

Pete Davies

02/06/14 - 14:42

Another baby boomer here – 1946. Earliest local buses for me were Manchester Leylands (including Leyland trolleybuses on the Moston services) together with Rochdale AECs and Daimlers.
But “thinking outside the box”, the first thing that comes to mind, as with Ronnie, is those Blackpool PD2s with full fronts and centre entrances, which looked like – and in fact were – imitations of the trams. I loved the interior layout and the hiss of the air-operated sliding doors, but was rather disappointed with the bland sound effects, which (like the cab layout when I peered in through the bulkhead window) were all too familiar from Manchester. 15B to Poulton Lane Ends was our bus, then a short walk to a caravan site.
I must have reached Southport a little earlier than Stephen, because the beach service was being operated by ex-military DUKW amphibious vehicles (“ducks”), while the Bedford QLs ran seafront and town tours alongside open-top Leyland TD3s, one of which is preserved in the transport museum at St Helens. Sometimes we arrived by coach, and on the way in it said “Welcome to Sunny Southport”. Well the sun didn't always shine, but the immaculate cream and red buses certainly did. And the lamp posts were painted in the same livery – how's that for municipal pride? I also remember the Silver Belle (actually silver and green) when it was brand spanking new, because the previous year the pier train had been red. And then there was the Lakeside Miniature Railway (with real steam) which loved to show off the initials which it shared with the London Midland Region of British Railways. Again we were in a caravan, this time close to Woodvale Aerodrome. The PD2s on the 11 turned at the borough boundary, leaving us a stiff uphill country walk. (A curious thing about Southport buses was that they changed number for the return journey – the number went with the destination rather than the route.) A Ribble PD2 heading for Liverpool would have taken us further, but my parents disregarded these as if they were scary foreign things, probably because in Manchester they didn't stop!
Our third regular destination was a village between Warrington and Chester where my mother's relatives lived. We made the journey either by train from Manchester Exchange Station or by bus from Salford Greengate, but it was only much later in life that I realised that the former had been directly on top of the latter! The 10 to Warrington was run jointly by green buses – which I knew were Salford Daimlers – and red buses, which I didn't have a clue about at the time but were in fact Lancashire United's. At Warrington we changed to the Crosville 18, run by buses which instructed us to mind our heads when leaving our seats. The abiding memory of a machine gun-like thumping sensation tells me that they must have been Bristol K5Gs. Later the service was renumbered C30 and Lodekkas took over. I stepped on to the platform, turned left, went to mount the non-existent step into the saloon and stamped hard on the floor instead. Every single time!

Peter Williamson

03/06/14 - 07:32

My biggest blunder was to have been born 10 months after the last Reading tram trundled back into Mill Lane. I may possibly have seen the Corporation's two surviving Guy FCX 6-wheel single-deckers, but at 3 I didn't quite appreciate what they were and have no recollection of them. A few Thames Valley Brush-bodied Tilling-Stevens single-deckers lasted till I was 5, but again---no recall. I clearly remember the Guy B single-deckers of 1926 and 1928-29-30, some of which had smoking compartments at the back, others having perimeter seating. The last of them went when I was seven, so I did get a few rides. But what left the deepest impression were the Leyland TD1s of 1929-32, and especially no 36, the only one of the batch with an open staircase. I loved the quiet whirring of the engine, which allowed the gearbox to be heard to best advantage. Thames Valley's TD1s and LT1s and LT2s survived till between 1950 and 1952, many re-engined and heavily rebuilt, and a few open-staircase examples survived till the end, but they were forbidden fruit, as the fare to school would have been a halfpenny more.
A few nights spent at an aunt's house at Ealing, Middlesex, afforded a ride in the long back seat upstairs on an LT, and a trip to Aldermaston (the village, not the AWRE!)in about 1948 gave me an all too brief taste of an ex-Burnley 1931 centre-entrance Roe-bodied Regent. Reading Corporation's 1933-34 Park Royal-bodied, which I'd previously dismissed as being too modern, began to disappear in 1949, but not before I got a chance to wonder at their straight staircases (unique? on a lowbridge body) and the incongruously Leyland-like sound of the petrol engines that survived in one two or three of the batch. The grunting, whistling utility Guys of 1942-43 were another source of fascination, but they were withdrawn in 1949-50, which is odd, seeing that Regents 47 and 48 were rebuilt in 1950 to give another 6 years' service. Not living on a trolleybus route, I failed to take much notice of the 1936 batch of six trolleybuses (of 5 different makes!) but a clear picture remains of the Sunbeam yellow triangle, and the ex-Huddersfield Karrier 1934 six-wheelers were very memorable with their typically Brush 3-piece upstairs front window and saloon-height platforms. But I've strayed too far into recent times...

Ian T

03/06/14 - 13:01

As one of the younger (1953 manufactured) contributors to this discussion by interest was formed by the West Riding buses passing my Wakefield home as we were on one of the former tram routes & at that time had the joys of the centre entrance AEC Regents. My interest was sparked even more in 1959 when a strange box shaped double- decker appeared, OHL 863 the first Guy Wulfrunian. My earliest & strongest memory from outside my home area was from a holiday on the Isle of Arran in 1962. It was of the variety of buses operated by the independents who ran the islands services in those days, quite a few of which were Fodens which I didn't recall ever seeing before (never having caught up with any of Sammy Ledgards). There were also a number of other types some of which seemed by the SJ 1xxx registrations to be very ancient!. It was only later when I realised that the newest cars were only registered in the high SJ 3XXX or maybe 4xxx that they were not quite as ancient as I thought. A very memorable holiday.

Keith Clark

04/06/14 - 07:54

I'm afraid your memory is letting you down slightly, Keith C - Bute (or Buteshire) County Council were famous for having issued registrations only up to SJ 2860 by December 1963, after which the year suffix system commenced with ASJ 1B. Several Scottish authorities did not reach three-letter marks (without a year suffix) but, of those, Bute, comfortably, had issued the least registrations by the time the year suffix system commenced.
I recall that the last authority in England/Wales to reach three-letter marks was Rutland County Council, which did so c.1962. In respect of Bute, it's a little confusing in that Bute County Council covered not only the Isle of Bute, but also Arran (much larger in area) and several smaller islands in the Firth of Clyde.
Apparently Bute did issue SJ 2861-77 for re-registrations, I presume this was over the period 1964-75, after which Bute C.C. ceased to exist.

David Call

04/06/14 - 13:59

Like Keith, I am of 1953 vintage - as was West Yorkshire's pre-production Lodekka DX2. Bustling Bingley, Yorkshire was responsible for my early interest in buses, not to mention lorries, trains and cars. The main operators through the town were West Yorkshire Road Car and Bradford CT, with Hebble having a presence too. West Yorkshire provided Diesel sound effects with Bristol K, L, LS5G and Lodekka LD6Bs, whereas Bradford offered its smooth, silent trolleybuses. Until I could read at least a little, bus types were recognised simply by shape and colour. WY's long-grille LDs were named 'yawning buses' and the (dual purpose) LSs 'cat' buses because the winged motif on the front looked to me like cats whiskers. Hebble ran a mixture of mainly AEC single- and double-deck buses on their routes in and out of town, with their distinctive one-piece destination displays. In later years the family moved to neighbouring Shipley, where again WY and BCT dominated the scene. However, the delightful buses of Samuel Ledgard also passed through the town at regular intervals, to further whet the enthusiast appetite. From there it was possible to walk with my brothers along to Manningham railway sheds (then still home to steam engines) and on into Bradford. There, BCT's Leyland Titan PD2s, AEC Regent IIIs, Vs and RTs could be seen, mingling with more trolleys, West Yorkshire, West Riding and Yorkshire Woollen vehicles. After all this visual and aural stimulation, we would then catch the West Yorkshire 58 Bradford-Shipley bus (via Canal Road) back home (usually a Bristol LL or LWL). Sheer heaven!

Brendan Smith

04/06/14 - 15:19

Dave C. thanks for the additional info about the Bute registration's, the memory was playing up a bit as I wasn't sure after 50+ years just how high the numbers had reached.

Keith Clark

17/06/14 - 07:05

For me, it all started in the early 50's when, growing up in Stockport, we would go to visit my grandparents each Sunday afternoon and which involved a round trip on North Western vehicles of different types from Mersey Square to Heald Green. These always seemed more 'exotic' than SCTD's own rather ordinary Leyland and Crossley double deckers - ordinary only because I travelled on them almost every day with my mother or father.
What really clinched it, though, was when we started to go to Torquay for our summer holidays on the famous Friday night Yelloway services from Lower Mosley Street in Manchester. I can vividly remember the excitement, the noise, and the smell of diesel as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of us queued to board what was usually an 'On Hire To Yelloway' coach which would transport us to a different world. Travelling overnight, and staying awake all night, with stops at midnight for a hot dog or Lyons Fruit Pie at some cafe somewhere. Stopping in Bristol at 02.00am for a change of driver. It was allso different from everything which happened the other 364 days of the year. I was absolutely hooked, and thereafter I always associated buses and coaches as providing the way to adventure and fun. For me, the holidays were all about the journey and the coach we would travel in - not the beach or the seaside.
Incidentally, I remember the very first journey was on a full fronted, maroon / cream liveried coach from an operator in Leigh, about 1955 - any ideas, anyone ? And strangely, we never actually went on a Yelloway coach - the most frequently travelled on over the four years or so were the deep red Hanson half-cabs. I also remember a return journey on an empty ( just me on the front seat, of course, plus my mother and father ) Seagull bodied Leyland ( ? ) of an operator from Keighley and which started my love affair with these all-time classics.
As the years went by, I became fascinated by the variety of vehicles and liveries which we could see once outside of Stockport. How could buses and coaches all be so different? The fabulously eccentric full-front double deckers of Blackpol Corporation with their cream livery. The various and unique Midland Red coaches, with their red and black livery shining under the lights in the rain, and unlike anything else, which we sometimes saw in Mersey Square on Sunday evenings on their way to Scotland as we made our way back home from Heald Green. Gorgeous green Bristols in North Wales - I remember being captivated by their white steering wheels the first time I saw them. And I knew I was on holiday and far from home when I saw the lovely and stylish Royal Blue coaches in the Bristol area with their raised rear rooflines or the rather 'bling-bling' Black and White coaches in the Cheltenham aream full of chrome stripes and chromed wheel discs.
And in my early teens, days out on the X60 Manchester > Blackpool service to spend the time wandering around the various coach parks and seeing coaches from all over the UK for the first time. No famous Golden Mile or Pleasure Beach for me - except the Pleasure Beach coach park !
Eventually, I sort of grew up and I started to notice girls more than buses. But now, 50+ years later and retired, and thanks to this interweb thingy, I can spend hours and hours reliving those memories with access to thousands of pictures of the buses and coaches that were such a part of my childhood, and sites like this one where someone will make a comment which then gets the old brain cells remembering so much that I thought I had forgotten.
Happy days - then an now.

Stuart C

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