On The Buses

George Row, Northampton

It's Heritage Weekend, many buildings and places of interest in Northampton were open to the public, but the highlight for Robbie was the old buses. They were taking people on tours around the town via an assortment of interesting places. Robbie didn't seem to mind that some of the buses had never been used in Northampton or even Northamptonshire, but it mattered to me. It was nice to see a couple of our old red buses, but it would have been lovely to have seen one or two of our old green (county) buses. 

This is the bus that Robbie travelled on today

This bus is rather like the one that I used to catch to get home from school it brings back a few memories. I often travelled by bus in those days but I have probably only been on a bus about twice in the last twenty years. I don't really have good or bad memories of buses, they just took you to where you wanted to be and if you were very lucky they were on time. 


As a very young child, I often travelled on the bus to my aunt's house and back. I liked that because our journey took us past Castle Station and my aunt usually let us sit on the top deck so I could look out of the window and see everything going on at the station. There was much more going on in those days, and the bus paused at the traffic lights I could look across towards the goods yard. So I guess for me buses were just a means of seeing the things that I wanted to see!

This is the bus that took me home from school

A Northampton bus conductor

The conductor used to have a little machine with different coloured (and different priced) tickets on rolls, so when you paid your fare he or she just pushed a lever and produced the correct ticket. Most conductors were reasonably cheerful, but when someone decided to modernise the world and change to one man buses the drivers seemed to be as miserable as sin. I disliked one man (or should I say person) operated buses and for me that was when bus travel took a turn for the worse and became something to avoid if at all possible.

Northampton bus tickets

I lived and worked in Sheffield for a while in 1983 and I liked their buses very much because the drivers were not miserable and payment was simple. They had a hopper thing to drop your coins in and the ticket that was produced had an imprint of the coins that you had put in. As far as I recall it was called a videmat ticket machine. I haven't seen that system anywhere else but there again I don't go out of my way to travel by bus. 

So for those like Robbie who are interested in anything with wheels, here are some pictures of the other buses that were out and about in Northampton on Saturday. Robbie is so obsessed that he will be back 'on the buses' on Sunday