The View From the Bus.

[DJ360 6,730]

Now this is really going to test my memory..  but I've been thinking about how I used to love sitting upstairs on the bus as a kid.

 

The 28 was my nearest.  The terminus was just around the corner from us.  Down Southglade Road on Bestwood Estate, turn up Padstow for a few yards to the end of Leybourne Drive and the bus would wait there.  There was a clock on a steel post.  The clock went many years ago but if I recall correctly the post remained for a long time. I suppose the interesting thing about the 28 was that its Terminus wasn't really anywhere significant.  No shops, no major junction.. nothing much at all really, except what was then, in the early 50s almost 'frontier country'.  The edge of civilisation...  To go further.. you had to take to the fields.

 

So the 28 would set off along Leybourne Drive with me looking into people's gardens along the way.  Bestwood Estate back then was a friendly sort of place.  People hadn't yet been too clearly divided into the sort of social classes beloved of advertisers nowadays and the post war housing shortage caused people of all sorts to coexist in places such as Bestwood Est. So the mix contained some really 'rough' people along with 'salt of the Earth' types and some who would quickly become the aspiring 'middle classes'.  Some people also surprised me.  My prejudices. largely learned from my Mum.. turned out to be wrong so often that it shaped my social and political thinking for life.  Mum had a heart of Gold in so many ways but was also unstinting in her dismissal of those she thought were 'above themselves'. 

 

" Mum.. the XXXXXX's have got a car and they're buying a house in.... "

 

" Huummmpphhh.  Always did fancy themselves... that lot.."

 

There was a bitterness in my Mum which really contrasted her generous nature and almost suffocating urge to 'do the right thing'.  I never could quite work it out.

 

But I digress...

 

The 28 would turn down off Leybourne onto Andover Road.  I'm practically certain it did this via Hove Road..  ( Ben will know..  he still has most of his marbles.. ) which would bring it down not too far from the shops in Andover Road by Marble Arch.  More gardens.  I recall one towards the 'top' of Andover Road.. Arnold Road end which was planted up with all red and white bedding plants.. picked out with little red and white fences a foot or so high.. and all to celebrate Forest's FA Cup win in 1959.  My Dad was there..

 

Out onto Arnold Road for a little way and then left down Hucknall Road towards City Hospital.  As I recall there was a roundabout on that junction which is now lights.  All the road signs were different.. but it's quite hard to recall what they looked like.  Old 'Keep Left' bollards too.  And of course at that junction you also crossed a couple of railway bridges carrying the Leen Valley Line round from Daybrook along Hucknall Rd to Bestwood Colliery and beyond.. plus the link from the Leen Valley Line to Bagthorpe under Arnold Lane etc... ( I'm getting confused already and it's only half past May..)

 

Just as you got to City Hospital on the left.. you could see over a wall to where someone kept pigs.  I could never figure out whether that was part of the Hospital.. or something separate.  On the other side of the road you could see the 'Pavilion' and the playing fields for Nottingham High School.  Do we have anyone on here who went there?  One lad from Henry Whipple Primary did.  He was a nice enough lad but not the brightest compared to several who didn't make it.  But his Dad was a Senior Police Officer.  The nearest rival and at least as clever was the son of a grocer who went with me to High Pavement and became an acknowledged expert in 'Consumer Psychology.'  I never heard what happened to the Police Officer's son.. though I recall his name.

 

And so on..  always wondered about that little ditch alongside the High School playing fields.  Turned out much later to be the 'Day' 'Brook'.. which empties into the Leen in Basford.  Over Valley Road.  You could just see the miniature railway track in the 'rec' to your left.. but there was never anything running on it when I went past.

Up the other side the prison grounds were on your left behind some nondescript housing.  You could see fences and bankings and the barrack like buildings.. but also some gardens where I always assumed that prisoners whiled away the hours growing vegetables...

 

Girton Road on the right.  I went up there once with another lad from my Cub or Scout group. We went to see a man about something to do with getting Proficiency Badges but I can't remember which.  I think the chap was another policeman and we might have gone there about Cycling badges or somesuch.. but all I really recall is that he had a sort of tray in a bay window with a lot of Cactii in gravel.  I couldn't stop looking at it..  I recall thinking how it must be good to have money to spend on something like that.  It wouldn't have happened in my home..  If it wasn't of practical use.. apart from a TV.. there was little spent on much else.

Funny.. there must be thousands of streets even in our home towns.. which we never have cause to visit.. unless we are maybe Taxi Drivers.. We all live together.. yet we all live so separately..  it's a funny old World.

Also further up. Blackwoods scout HQ.  A real little oasis which I've mentioned here before.

 

So we cross Perry Road.. and at this point the bus parks up for the night because I am 'Cream Crackered.'.

 

A shall try to finish my bus ride tomorrow.,,

 

Col

[Brew 5,417]

I liked riding upstairs on a bus (I actually proposed on top of a bus) but as a child I'd look to see if the window behind the drive was 'my special one'. These windows had quite a curve to the right and if I stood I could watch the driver drive the bus. Fascinating - I thought bus drivers must be very clever because they could remember exactly how many times to turn the steering wheel to make the bus go round the corner.

I loved trolley buses too.

[plantfit 7,597]

Lovely post Col,Just like I was at the side of you going along that route,I have recently started using the bus again a couple of times a week either to Newark or Lincoln and I always sit upstairs (if it is a doule decker) and sit in the front seat either left side or right (never seen more than three people on our bus at any time) and like you enjoy looking in the gardens and such even though most of the views here are of farm land

 

Rog

[Oztalgian 3,294]

Upstairs on a Midland General B8 (Lodekka) bus going to or coming home from Forest matches in the winter.

Front seat on the drivers side was good as it was opposite the heater vent or the very back seat with your feet near the rear heater vent.

Could not get as warm on the AEC Regents? with the four seats across and the sunken gangway down the drivers side. Up Nottingham Rd, round the houses in Bestwood, Hucknall and Papplewick, past Newstead Abbey gates, warm and toasty by the time to get off. Always forgot about the headroom and usually banged me noggin on the roof. The smell of the cigarettes and the yellowing smoke stained roofs were always a feature unless you got a freshly painted one and then it was the smell of the new upholstery and paint.

[benjamin1945 16,160]

#1 Col...............nice post mate.......certainly got me waxing lyrical again,........the 28 bus was always my bus,and from its terminus at the end of Leybourne to Arnold rd i have so many many memories of people,...........between Padstow rd and Eardley i recall many family's........Websters,Barnes,Scotts,Leaatherlands,Baldocks,Turtons,Stricklands,Browns,Joyce's..........then from Eardley to Hove rd.......Durhams,Daykins,Arthurs,Walters,Collins,Freestones,Copelands,Allcococks,Jeepsons,Jacksons,Hopkins,Mccullochs,Camms,Rimmingtons,.Starkeys,Clarkes,Knights,....was also born on that stretch and spent my first 2 years of life there,.......as for Hove rd Col yes the 28 did go down there,and my first memory is being in my push-chair in 1947 following my Dad who was carrying a big radio to the house on Andover rd where we moved to.............and Mam and Dad spent the next 50 years........and me the next 20..........happy days indeed

[Compo 10,328]

In those days the buses all had lots of dents on the nearside of the roof due to tree branches overhanging the road.

 

[catfan 14,793]

Sevices 6 & 28 on the "Bagthorpe" rota & operated out of PSD had a monopoly on all new buses arriving in the late '60s - '80s due to an agreement with the union due to time testing for one man operation with a new bus. When Bulwell went partly one man operation in May '75 we inherited their cast off Daimler Fleetlines '160-'184, for Bulwell to have two year old buses raised quite a few eye brows, we always had old buses until then !

[benjamin1945 16,160]

Went down Piccadilly today Catfan............sad to see where the old depot was is now houses........even the Snooker club..............

[plantfit 7,597]

Post # 6 the double decker buses out here are all fitted with a rail,similar to a large hand rail on the top front left to stop the damage caused by overhanging branches etc down these narrow lanes,if I have a bus pass trip to Newark tomorrow I will get a couple of pictures,perhaps all buses are fitted with them now though I don't know,Catfan will know

 

Rog

[catfan 14,793]

For a long time ben the house building stopped for some reason & only about half a dozen or so new houses had been built. Must have restarted the building program.

Spent many happy hours in the Piccadilly Club next door after finishing a late on a Saturday night many a time !

 

You're spot on there of course Rog about the rails, cheaper option than keep forking out for new windows that don't come cheap !

 

The orange revolving flashing beacons on my wagon were regularly ripped off by tree branches too.