MEMORIES - Growing up in the 1950s and 60s

WESTERN WELSH BUSES

By 21st century comparisons, I was a very innocuous, shy little boy. As well as being naive about life, I was also extremely timid, I hated ball games; couldn't catch - in fact hated any form of sport. When the locals played ball games in the road, I was the one who sat on the back wall and just watched. I much preferred quieter activities, riding my bike, playing with my dinky toys or train set, and being in the company of one local lad my age who was of a similar gentle disposition. One of my main interests in life was buses, Western Welsh buses to be precise, and in particular the single decked varieties.

I don't recall how this started, looking back now, some forty-odd years later I can't even identify at what age my interest began. All I remember is that by the time I was 10 years old I was mad about them; I knew every combination of fleet number, registration number, body style and colour variation. I could identify the prefix registration numbers from a mile away just by slight differences in body styles, and by the time I started in secondary school I was acknowledged by my peers as an authority on the subject.

One day, whilst still in junior school, my friend asked if had seen the new double-decker Leyland Atlantean, with the engine at the back - I hadn't and I was madly jealous. I was the bus expert, why had he seen one and not me! This caused a new pattern in my habits, from now on I would have to walk home from Oldcastle School via Cowbridge Road instead of Ewenny Road (we lived in Priory Road in those days) just in case an Atlantean from Cardiff should pass by. "You're late getting in for dinner today" my mother would enquire. "Oh, I came Cowbridge Road way for a change" it was actually a much longer way home and left me very little time for lunch before nipping off to school again for the afternoon.

When I started in secondary school (Summerhill in Park Street) it was necessary to travel on the bus, tu'pence to the bus station, and, if I could afford it, three ha'pence from there to school on the service buses. Usually I walked the second stage unless it was very wet. At the end of the day the school arranged for three Western Welsh buses to transport pupils to the bus station, again three ha'pence was the fare, and the destination, my favourite place. There I could wander happily amongst the waiting buses and peer longingly round the door of the depot where many retired or newer buses were kept hidden from public view. I gazed at the destination boards to see where these wonderful machines were bound; Porthcawl, Cardiff, Bettws, Blaengarw, Maesteg, Nantymoel and all sorts of other places, but my favourite was Fforddygyfraith, a magical sounding name its whereabouts completely unknown to me, pronounced with prominent rolling Rs and lots of tongue between the teeth.

One of the routes operated by the company was a short local round trip to Priory Avenue, the outward journey via Merthyr Mawr Road, the return journey via Ewenny Road. Always, one of the older half-cab pre-war buses of the DKG 9xx series would operate this route but one day a brand-new smaller bus was seen turning in Priory Avenue. TUH 2 was an Albion Nimbus with a 30 seat Willowbrook body and looked very pretty in its livery of red with a cream waist band and cream roof. With six rows of seats either side of a central aisle and a row of five at the back, there was also a single seat facing inwards at the front of the bus, perched on top of the wheel arch, and this was to become my favourite position from where I could easily watch the driver and also an uninterrupted view of the road ahead.

I was so taken with the Albion Nimbus that it started off a new craze, destination boards on my bike! I was always quite creative and on a piece of white card I drew the front of the bus, with little interchangeable destination boards and registration numbers, which I then attached to the front handle bars of my old Dawes Dapper bicycle. Very soon some of the other kids wanted one as well so I had a little production line going, although they had to provide the card! With a cardboard cigarette-box "engine" flapping against the spokes of the rear wheel, courtesy of one of the local boys whose Dad was a "Players" rep, we roared around the local streets pretending to be one or other of Western Welsh's fleet.

A chance conversation in 2003 pointed me in the direction of a former employee of the bus company who knew someone who had a collection of Western Welsh photos - about 200 of them, all from the 1950s and 1960s. In no time at all I had sought permission to copy the entire collection and dreamily wallowed in nostalgia recalling those far-off days of my childhood when happiness was a bus I hadn't seen before!