It would have been strictly for entertainment on long and medium wavebands, the stations being Home Service (like R4) and Light Programme. There was no VHF domestic radio pre-war. I remember trying to fit an old Cossor slightly post-war valve radio in my MG. Not a good idea! It was very heavy, bulky and was in 2 parts, the radio and a separate vibrator power pack. No room for your feet under the dash! Bri
The hump is a low-sided recess to hold your luggage cases when going on your holidays. The driver had to climb up by the toe holes you can see between the back windows. No H&S to worry about in the good old days!
The double-decker was an ex-Ribble coach, Leyland with Burlingham coachwork. I seem to remember it was the original drab maroon or dark brown colour, in contrast with our beautiful Cambridge blue Corpy buses of that era! Bri
Hardings yard, work sheds and coach storage {all rolled into one} was in Chestnut Grove Higher Tranmere, Between Derby Road and Church Road, lower down the road from Holt Hill Convent grounds.
Last edited by jimbob; 4th Mar 201110:58pm.
Ships that pass in the night, seldom seen and soon forgoten
Thanks Jimbob. I remember there as a high wall and Victorian houses around the site. Would it have been where Mill Close now is, with an entrance opposite Thompson Street?
For many of us in the 1960s and 1970s whose family didn't own a car, they were the gateway to tourist paradise! Well, mostly. I vividly remember my mum booking us on several day-trips to places like Alton Towers (when it still had some charm) , Chester Zoo etc etc. Great times. Two memories stick in my mind: A trip billed as Jodrell Bank Observatory/Manchester Airport (yes!) ....comically the trip to Jodrell consisted of the driver parking the coach next to a hedge near the famed Observatory, standing at the front of the coach and, without even opening the doors pointing, saying 'There's the telescope, over derr'...and that was it!! We drove on!!!!! On to Manc airport - why mum booked it I don't know, perhaps I was interested in stargazing in the first half of the journey at Jodrell.....anyway it was a boiling hot day - it must have been That summer of 1976, famous - and all I recall is wandering around FOR HOURS and going down the steepest escalators of my life. Many years later, I thought it would be fun to recount the Jodrell Bank bit to some office mates....but of course, in our modern age, the bit they found HILARIOUS was that there was a 'day-tri'p to Manchester Airport!!!!
My second memory is deeply personal - of my beloved older sister, Sheila (who died in 2001, just 45) , as a teenager joining me and mum on the bus before a start of a trip to-who-knows-where, mum had booked the three of us on, and then deciding to leave moments before we set off (probably to party!). I was heartbroken, as she was a lot of fUN Sheila, God rest her soul.
