Tag: Stephen Ford
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Midland General AEC Regent II/Weymann
Until I was about 5 we lived in Nottingham. At that time (the early 1950s) Nottingham City Transport was dominated by pre-selector AEC Regents (including quite a lot of pre-war ones). These were fine in their way – but the transmission music of a pre-selector was quite different from the Mark II crash gearbox. We…
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Visiting Grandad
When I was about 4 my grandparents moved from the Nottingham suburb of Mapperley to Hucknall – now the northern terminus of the Nottingham tram system, but then way outside the precincts of Nottingham City Transport. Hucknall was a mining “village” and my grandmother always referred to it disparagingly as “Mucky ’Uckna’ ”. From our…
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“’Arf a day trip she’s paid for…”
Round about 1956 my uncle, aunt and cousin booked a half-day pleasure tour with Trent from Nottingham to Dovedale. I guess it would cost about 4/6 in those days. I haven’t a clue what the vehicle was, but it had a central entrance, and uncle and cousin managed to snaffle the front nearside seat alongside…
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Western National Cornwall
My father worked for British Railways in Nottingham, so unlike most of my schoolfriends who had to be content with holidays on the Lincolnshire coast or maybe North Wales, we made the very best use of our free rail travel. A favourite destination was Cornwall, and since the railway came to an end at Penzance,…
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Goose Fair
It is easy to forget how heavily we relied on buses during the 1950s when car ownership was so much lower than it is today. Any major function was an occasion to run a special bus service. Many cities’ blinds featured such exotic destinations as “Football Ground” and “Races” as well as the more general…