Can anyone throw some light on a puzzling thing that is bothering me relating to Ribble/Standerwick/Scout Gay Hostess Coaches? In the early/middle 1960s I was living in Patchway very near to the present day M4/M5 interchange, I took my young son down to the (then) main A38 trunk road to see the heavy congestion that was prevalent in those days especially on summer Friday evenings. We would occasionally see the handsome new double deck coaches that were en route to some exotic West Country destination, they may have been terminating in Bristol in fact, I cannot remember now after all these years. My question is whose vehicles would they have been, Ribble/Standerwick/Scout? I received a copy of Roger Davies "Working Days Ribble" for my birthday in February and I could not find the answer there, I also inquired via the Classic Bus magazine to no avail, any answer would be gratefully received. My son is 52yrs old now and I don't think for 1 minute he would care either way, but his old dad would be obliged if somebody can supply me with the relevant information, thanks in anticipation.
Dave Knapp
28/05/12 - 07:59
Just speculation on my part. The gay Hostesses were front line vehicles for a front line service (London - Lancashire) and I doubt that there were any left over for other duties. There were, however, a second batch of Atlantean Coaches - not quite to Gay Hostess standard and without the beading and lining out on the livery. They were simply a cream and red reversal of normal bus livery and, whilst they had coach seating, they had no toilet or servery. Could these be the vehicles you saw?
David Oldfield
28/05/12 - 08:00
I wonder if they might have been coaches run by Trathens, based in Plymouth, who ran services all over the South-West and to and from London, using double-deckers. Latterly, they seemed to become part of the National Express network. They were taken over by a Scottish company, Parks, and the name was dropped in 2009.
Chris Hebbron
28/05/12 - 08:00
Ribble's Gay Hostess double deck coaches operated on the Liverpool-Bristol service in their early days. The prototype (MCK 812) was new in 1959 and was trialled on different services (North-west to Glasgow; London; and Bristol). Further deliveries followed in 1960. In 1963 the Ribble owned vehicles were transferred to subsidiaries Standerwick and Scout to operate the London services so the period the Gay Hostess coaches would have been seen near Bristol would have been sometime between 1959 and 1963.
David Slater
28/05/12 - 08:02
Ribble used their "White Lady" double deck coaches on the Blackpool-Bristol service around that time. They were to a different configuration to the "Gay Hostess" vehicles lacking a servery and toilet. One is in preservation - see http://rvpt.org/1279.htm.
Mike Grant
29/05/12 - 06:40
Many thanks for the answers/suggestions to my query about Ribble Gay Hostess coaches on the northern approaches to Bristol. I think Dave Slater hit the spot exactly with his comments, they (Gay Hostess coaches) were certainly not regular visitors, to my limited knowledge, it would be interesting to look at any vehicle movement logs, as I mentioned initially I had the book 'Working Days Ribble' as a birthday gift but there was no mention of this topic! Thank you all.
Dave Knapp
29/05/12 - 08:42
David...I'm sure I recall seeing the Gay Hostess coaches arriving at Marlborough Road Bus Station and my friend Clive once took a picture having borrowed his Dad's camera! I recall we thought them very special and quite exciting at the time. This is a very distant memory but was there an article about them in either Buses Illustrated or Bus & Coach magazine? I dimly recall reading something around the time they were running.
Before anyone asks, I don't have that picture because I lost contact with Clive in 1965 but if you're out there Clive (Bryant), maybe you still have it in a file somewhere!
Richard Leaman
29/05/12 - 10:12
Sorry - a correction to my earlier post. I don't have evidence that the Atlantean White Ladies ran to Bristol. I had in mind a picture I had seen but now I've traced it is of a vehicle loading in Liverpool and bound for Bristol on X25 and is clearly a Gay Hostess. It is the centrepiece of the 1962 Ribble Ian Allan ABC.
Ribble Vol.1 by T B Maund (Venture) confirms on p65 that Gay Hostesses 1253 and 4 (NRN 602/3) were allocated to Blackpool depot for the Bristol express in June 1960.
Mike Grant
06/03/14 - 07:36
Yes Ribble did use Double Decker Coaches, from Blackpool/Preston/Liverpool, to Cheltenham, With extensions at Summer weekends to Bristol, and Weston Super Mare.
In fact they had so many coaches running down, that they had their own Inspector at the w/ends in Cheltenham, with through coaches running down to the South Coast, on hire to Black and White/A.M. Motorways.
The deckers were ex London service coaches, and would return to the London service at peak times, to be replaced by spare tour coaches, with limited seating, and anything else that would move!!!!
Mike .009
18/12/14 - 17:03
I travelled home to Clevedon from Liverpool University 1959-62 and in a couple of summers was able to get Ribble X25 from Liverpool to Bristol direct (via the A49 and A38). I can recall it being a double decker on a couple of occasions. I would have put my money on it being a White Lady Atlantean rather than a Gay Hostess. I recall it had air suspension at the front and weak shock absorbers causing it to 'nod' all the way down the narrow A49! The 'hostess'(selling biscuits etc and hot drinks - for which the coach stopped in a lay-by to save spillage!) was more likely a long service conductor relieved of stage carriage duties around Liverpool for the day!
If Richard Leaman's friend Clive was the Clive G Bryant who eventually became the last NBC Chief Engineer of Ribble, then I'm afraid that he died early not long after selling out to Stagecoach and retiring to the Bristol area!
Geoff Pullin
20/06/16 - 09:12
Geoff (Pullin) I hope you really didn't put any money down betting the coach you travelled on was a White Lady rather than a Gay Hostess.
As stated, the Gay Hostesses were initially trialled on the X25 Blackpool-Liverpool-Bristol and X30 Manchester-Glasgow services. Apparently one reason why they were not successful was because their air suspension and the associated pitching it caused was conducive to passenger travel sickness on ordinary roads.
Obvious differences were that the Gay Hostesses had 50 'Chapman'-style coach seats instead of 59 lesser specified coach seats, and a servery with hot water boiler and a toilet compartment. On the White Ladies these were omitted and the whole area devoted to luggage.
In a way you've proved that you did actually travel on a Gay Hostess, because if you had travelled on a White Lady then there wouldn't have been a servery, so no need for a 'hostess' and therefore no refreshments, which you say you remember!
David J.Smith
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