Ticket to nostalgia

THESE days most of us take our cars for granted.

Some readers like me, however, remember the days when we went to work and enjoyed our leisure only because there was plenty of public transport available.

I have written many times in this column about nostalgia for steam trains.

Many books are published each year about them and restored lines deserve to be major tourist attractions.

In our area we have the East Lancashire, Worth Valley and Embsay railways, the latter of which has recently been extended as far as Bolton Abbey.

Each of these have walks based around them so that you get the feeling of being a tourist before the 1950s.

But what about the more humble bus?

If you want to celebrate the history of the bus, visit the Public Transport Museum in Manchester.

I went last week to meet curator Steven Lord. There are some wonderful exhibits there, including a horse-drawn omnibus which was the link between the rather expensive coaching era and the start of affordable public transport which really began in the age of the horseless carriage.

This aspect of our social history has not been celebrated as much as the railway era.

I remember the days when each of our towns had its buses painted in individual colours.

I wonder if any readers have memories or perhaps photographs of these buses and coaches which the Manchester Museum could copy.

Who remembers, for example, going on holiday on coaches run by Scout, Standerwick, Yelloway or, until very recently, Ribble?

Both my aunt and uncle worked on Burnley buses, my uncle being a driver and my aunt a "clippie".

The Manchester Museum brought back memories because there were collections of tickets, punches and also a display of the rollers with destinations and numbers painted on them. All round the walls signposts have been mounted which remind us of the days when there were no motorways and all journeys were routed through town centres.

Bus stations are still important but in the old days they were meeting points.

Once again I would like to hear from readers who remember these good old days or who have photographs of the bus stations and the old pubs which often surrounded them.

The Manchester Museum of Public Transport is reached via the M66 and then on to Cheetham Hill Road.

It is open over the weekend and on Wednesdays, from 10am to 5pm.

The bus took some time to become dominant and our Lancashire towns experimented with steam tramcars, trams and trolley buses.

These days Manchester has returned to the age of the tram and other cities are following the North West example but I doubt if such a system would be a viable proposition in smaller towns.

Blackpool, of course, is unique as it never allowed the magical trams to become extinct.

I also wonder if readers have memories of trams and trolley buses.

This part of our transport history is every bit as important as steam trains, churches or historic houses.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.