my dad was a fireman and he used to drive coaches part time for hardings in the 50s,when they were in charring cross,i wonder has anyone got any photos of the coaches and the garage.

Harding's Coach from the 1950s

Do we need a host site to upload pictures too first` or not,thanks

No. At the bottom of the "Reply" page is a heading "upload manager". From there you can upload pictures from your computer, using the "browse" button. Instructions are there when you open the upload manager.

I don't remember their garage place but they had a workshop in the late'50s behind the houses somewhere off Derby Road, possibly where St. Catherine's Gardens now is. It was run by a really nice mechanic who, as a favour, welded the decaying chassis of my first motor, a split-screen Morris Minor van. No MOT in those days!
I'd like to know his name, as my memory is not what it was!
Bri

A couple more Harding's coaches/buses. The first is from the 1930s and the second, the double decker, is from 1940s.

That first photo is outside the Palace on the prom. I remember the little booking office they had there. I always thought it strange that people came to New Brighton and then went off to other "exotic" places like Llandudno.

Not 100% sure but think Dornings also had a place there as well? I can remember one of them having a miniture coach there once. Sort of advertising thing but kids could actually get inside.

Later in life I used Hardings to follow Liverpool away games.

Anyone remember Cox's coaches in Mason street, New Brighton? Always immaculate and up to date.

Anyone else get nostalgic over the word "Charabanc"?
I recall when I was a lil kid, thinking it was 'SharraBANG' - that was how everyone pronounced it...!

Charabanc at Moreton Cross

We had Harding's, when we went on the street outing to Overton Hills and Ffrith Beach, Fred Smith was always the one who took us, the first stop to Ffrith beach was always the Queensferry Bridge pub for the grown ups,Overton hills was direct but the grown ups would disappear to a pub some where.

That bus is outside Hardings Offices in Atherton st/Oliver st,the reg is RN if I remember is Preston.

Excuse my stupidity, but on the side of the coach in the first photo it says 'Hardings Radio Coaches'. What exactly did that mean?

I presume they had a big VHF Marconi valve transiever or maybe they had a valve radio to tune into the Light programme

Cheers davew3! I did wonder.

Purpose-made mobile radios only came in about the early '30s and were very expensive so radio entertainment in a coach pre-WW2 would have been quite a novelty and good for attracting customers. Journeys were slower in those days so radio would pass the time away!

Bri

Is it me or has that coach got an unusual "hump" on the top?

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

Looking at how open the old charabancs were, Health & Safety seems to have been non-existent!

Although the roads were quieter back then I bet there were still loads of accidents.

I was just thinking the same - no seatbelts...

I remember the Hardings office by The Boot on Wallasey Road (next door to the bacon shop?).

Whose coaches had their offices on Mill Lane?

Can't really get my head around the open top one being at Moreton cross. Doesn't look right even for those days.

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.

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?

where that place is on the corner now?

Thank you

Is this the same company?

Harding removal and storage, had a yard down one of the side streets, oxton rd/borough rd.

Hardings coach trips : )

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.

I bet in those days, Manchester Airport was still known as Ringway.