WHEN the Pendleside community of Barley was first linked to the outside world by "bus " in the 1920s , the transport provided by villager Tom Barrett was hardly in the luxury league - for it amounted to two benches placed back-to-back under an awning behind the cab of an old one-ton Ford truck.

But as it plied to and from Nelson on market days, evenings and Saturday afternoons it was marking the beginnings of the Barley Omnibus Company, whose red and green buses were a familiar sight in Pendle until after the war.

Among the company's first drivers was Emily Hargreaves, whose father owned the lorry that set the business rolling - and who was driving also through the conventions of those times as women bus drivers were then seldom seen.

But apart from helping to open up the outside world to the villagers, the bus service did the same by putting Barley on the map and making it and the surrounding countryside much more accessible to townies. Before the buses began, people had to walk to Barley - a popular destination, particularly on Good Fridays, for milltown folk - but the long hike often deterred them from carrying on up Pendle Hill.

The difference the buses made was outlined in a company timetable in the Thirties, extolling the attractions of Pendleside. "For young and old by bus to Barley means the preserving of energy that can be presently and beneficially utilised in the ascent of Pendle or in traversing the picturesque stretches of the valley," said its blurb.

But the Barley buses were also an everyday boon to the people of Pendleside, stopping whenever and wherever passengers wanted and also carrying messages, parcels, milk churns, hens in crates and even calves in sacks.

The company's bus services were taken over by the Burnley, Colne and Nelson transport undertaking in 1945, but the coach side of the business carried on long under the name of Barley Coaches.

Omnibus addition: College's computer tour

NOWADAYS computers are even found in primary school classrooms, but when Blackburn college lecturers wanted senior scholars in the town's schools to get a feel for them 31 years ago, it meant them taking lessons to drive a bus.

For so uncommon were computers in education back in 1968, they had to resort to cannibalising one from old models no longer wanted by industry and taking it around Blackburn area's schools in a 20-year-old single-decker pensioned off by the town's transport department.

And that meant that Dr D.M. McAllister, head of the Mathematics, Computing and Statistics Department at Blackburn College of Technology and Design and colleague Mr W. Edmundson had first to learn how to drive the Leyland PS1 so that they could provide secondary school pupils with tuition in computer technique and programming. Helped by colleagues from their department and other college staff, they toiled at the workshop of the town's fire station fitting what was then a "small" computer into the old No.3 from the corporation's bus fleet.

Dr McAllister wrote to firms throughout the country in the hope he could snap up computers they were disposing of and starting off with one given by International Computers and Tabulators, he got two more for a nominal sum - from which he was able to make a "set of maximum capacity."

But if since those days when Blackburn's schools shared just one cobbled-together computer so big that it needed a bus to bring it to them, technology has progressed so that now it could all easily be contained on a single microchip and a modern credit card size calculator would have more computing power, then another big change is also illustrated in the cost of the one the college constructed.

For it calculated that it had got computer equipment worth £150,000 for less than £3,000 - but as that bargain price is equivalent to more than £30,000 now, the college was paying as much as schools could buy 100 personal computers for today.

Kiwi connection with old Darwen

IN FARAWAY New Zealand, David Booth is looking forward to retracing his roots in Darwen when he visits the town with his family next month.

For his connection with Darwen goes back to his great grandmother, Annie Walsh, who left there in 1891 to marry Basil Malamma, of Salford, and then moved to the USA in 1920.

"She was the daughter of Eli and Mary Walsh. Her father was the owner of Hey Fold Colliery during the 1860s and was living at 70, Bolton Road, Darwen, in 1878. He died in 1879 and is buried in the Non-Conformist section of Darwen Cemetery," says David. Annie's mother was the daughter of Lawrence Yates Smalley, who, David believes, might at one time have owned the New Inn, and whose ancestors included the Rev Robert Smalley, minister of the Lower Chapel in Darwen between 1751 and 1791.

But familiar as he is with his forbears, David is not sure how many relatives he may still have hereabouts - descended from his great grandmother's brothers, Albert and James Walsh, and their sister, Mary, who all remained in Darwen until they died.

"If any of this rings any bells for any readers, I'd be delighted to hear from them and when I visit Darwen would like to take the opportunity to meet anyone who is descended from or who remembers any these people," he adds.

David can be contacted at 10 Matatea Avenue, Pukekohe, New Zealand, or by e-mail at compass@ps.gen.nz

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