SPOT-ON Routemaster

It was 1962, I was about to become a teenager; somehow I knew that my grandmother was going to give me that Spot-On Routemaster bus that I craved. "Don't you think that you're getting a bit too old for dinky toys now?" my mother had asked, but I didn't respond, I had desired that expensive bus for some time and it was the only thing I really wanted from my grandmother for my birthday.

On 22nd May 1962 there was the present from my grandmother; the right shaped box - inside, my dream, the Spot-On Routemaster. There was just one minor cloud on the horizon, my 16-year-old cousin was staying with her at the time and he teased me mercilessly about having what he thought was a rather juvenile toy for my 13th birthday "Has Mikey had a little busey for his birfday den?" he whined constantly in a childish tone. I tolerated this though as I had a present I really wanted and was silently delighted. I knew that I would not be able to tell my friends about my bus as they too would have taken great delight in making me a spectacle of ridicule.

The Spot-On Routemaster bus, at a scale of 1/42, was huge by dinky toy standards at about 9 inches long x 6 inches high, completely out of scale with all my other toys. I think I recall it cost 15s.0d in 1962, certainly a lot of money when about £15 was the average weekly wage!

Over forty years later and I don't know where that bus is now - it must be here somewhere as nothing is ever thrown away. I can put my hand on the matchbox collection of buses and know where all the other dinky toys are, but the Routemaster, I've no idea!

On that day in 1962 I also had a new bike - £10.10s.0d from Halfords; full size no gears, if you wanted three gears you had to pay an extra three pounds! My father fitted a 1940s BSA 3-Speed hub and I used that bike, on and off, until the mid 1990s. The bike now hangs in the back of my garage waiting for restoration to its former glory. As for the buses, a year or so later and my interests had changed, guitars became the passion of my life. No longer would I be seen hanging around the bus station in search of those elusive rare buses and my boyish expertise and knowledge lay dormant for many years, occasionally mildly rekindled in the past few years on seeing 1950s buses at vintage rallies.