bus pic

[eddieg]

Anybody Know these guys.

[malaymac]

Don't know the lads in the photo, but certainly remember the bus. The old no.30. This was my bus back home, after being downtown.
we would get on here in the Market Place, go up Fowler Street, up past Westoe, all the way up Sunderland Road through Harton Village
to the Ridgeway, near The 'new' Ship. Can't say for sure, but the photo looks late sixties-ish. ???

[anna]

great photo.... =D> =D>

[malaymac]

Anyone with an interest in the local bus services should check out South Shields Transport by John Carlson and Neil Mortson. =D>

It's a well written account of the town and it's bus services through the years. Highly recommended and well worth a read. =D>

Not to mention some interesting and very nostalgic views of the town and how it used to look. =D>

[baldy.smith]

Here's one I took, opposite the Marsden Inn in the late fifties or early sixties.

On the left is conductor C Jacques and on the right the driver is Dave Smith, my father.

[malaymac]

Here's one I took, opposite the Marsden Inn in the late fifties or early sixties.

On the left is conductor C Jacques and on the right the driver is Dave Smith, my father.

Baldy, the badge which hangs down ther front of your fathers uniform, would that be his PSV licence or registration number.

Nice photo by the way and I bet it brings back a lot of memories for you. Any idea of the date ?

[baldy.smith]

Baldy, the badge which hangs down ther front of your fathers uniform, would that be his PSV licence or registration number.

Nice photo by the way and I bet it brings back a lot of memories for you. Any idea of the date ?

That's what the badge is mac, his driver number, if I remember right the outside circle is red, but I have
also seen them with a green or blue circle. I'm sure conductors wer supposed to wear one os well but I'm
not sure of the colour (possibly the blue one). They may have had different colours for trolley bus drivers
and motor bus drivers. My dad drove trolley buses for years before he went on to drive motor buses.

You can see in the photo that you posted that both conductor and driver have badges.

As I said in my post with the photo, it was taken either very late fifties or very early sixties, but most
likely to be around 1958/9.

[malaymac]

If I remember rightly, the conductors ticket machine would dispense tickets of different colours depending on the actual fare and I wonder if they
liked the later system of just one colour paper being used and just a case of paying attention to the right fare being printed on the paper.
And then even later, the introduction of one man operation (OM0) services. The end of conductors, as we know it.

[anna]

Mr Smith ,you say the photo was taken opposite the marsden inn ...so it means the bus is faceing horsley hill .?
im just curious because of the road ,it looks like a small cobble road ,i would have like to seen a bigger photo ,it must have took them ages in them days if thats what the main roads were ,cobbled..
ive seen this photo before but never noticed the road ...

[baldy.smith]

Anna, the road was not cobbled.

The lines you can see on the road are made when they make the road of
concrete. They use the edge of a long plank to level the wet concrete, and
also to get any air pockets/bubbles to rise to the surface, and those are
the ridges left by them doing that.

[malaymac]

Here's one I took, opposite the Marsden Inn in the late fifties or early sixties.

On the left is conductor C Jacques and on the right the driver is Dave Smith, my father.

Looking at this photo again got me thinking about the campaign in London to bring back the Routemaster buses with an open platform at the back
just like the one in Baldy's photo. There seems to be mixed opinion about how that would be a backward step, as the buses were cold, dangerous to
board and alight and in a worst case scenario, even lost a passenger or two, if they weren't holding onto the rail good enough.

And the counter argument is that, passengers board and alight much faster due to the larger access area, errrrr and that's about it. Or is it ?

[comeonthen]

Baldy my father worked on the buses in the middle sixties and that is how he was dressed and he used the same type of ticket machine. I still have his cap badge and conductor's badge. I will have to dig them out to see what colour they are.
The open backed buses were great. If the bus had gone you could run after it. I have seen myself halfway down Marsden Lane before I caught up with it. You could hop off at the Marsden Inn before it went around the corner. Sometimes if it was going fast you would actually overtake it.
The conductors had a leather bag for the money. If they had them now everybody would be dipping into them as he went past collecting fares.
comeonthen

[malaymac]

Baldy my father worked on the buses in the middle sixties and that is how he was dressed and he used the same type of ticket machine. I still have his cap badge and conductor's badge. I will have to dig them out to see what colour they are.
The open backed buses were great. If the bus had gone you could run after it. I have seen myself halfway down Marsden Lane before I caught up with it. You could hop off at the Marsden Inn before it went around the corner. Sometimes if it was going fast you would actually overtake it.
The conductors had a leather bag for the money. If they had them now everybody would be dipping into them as he went past collecting fares.
comeonthen

Comeonthen, the conductor looking around for some change, that's something I had completely forgotten about.

Over here in Singapore, for a few years now, they've had these plastic cards (same size as a credit card) which you just simply touch a small screen
and this thing knows exactly the card balance and later when you get off and tap the screen again, what fare is deducted from the card. It's very
easy to use, to top up and quick. I hear a little later in London, they introduced a similar scheme called Oyster.

[anna]

Anna, the road was not cobbled.

The lines you can see on the road are made when they make the road of
concrete. They use the edge of a long plank to level the wet concrete, and
also to get any air pockets/bubbles to rise to the surface, and those are
the ridges left by them doing that.

well hell,looks like cobbled to me ...
but im not disputing it ..i beleive you ..

[Jarrow Pete]

Can remember collecting bus tickets and adding the numbers up along the top, if they totalled 21 that was a lucky ticket and you could swap it for a marble or cigarrete card.
Can anyone remember the saying we used to have if you saw an ambulance, it went something like "hold your breath and never swallow till you see a cat or dog or any four legged animail".

[baldy.smith]

"hold your breath and never swallow till you see a cat or dog or any four legged animail".

I thought only Marsden lasses used that expression.

[anna]

Pete , we use to say ,"pinch my collar,pinch my nose ,hope i never go in one of those "...

[Delilahcat]

Touch your collar, never swaller, leave off when you see a dog was our childhood response to an ambulance.
The lucky ticket jogged my memory as well.
The open platform buses encouraged jumping on and off with dangerous results. One of our neighbours a lad called Ronnie Mackenzie had been in a fight and got his nose broken and front teeth knocked out. He got false teeth and the nose straightened but decided to jump off a bus when it slowed down at the top of Frederick Street beside the Adam and Eve pub. He misjudged the speed collided with a lamp post breaking his nose and knocking out his new false teeth.
Don't try this at home kids.

[anna]

aww bless.....
.
yes i remeber them buses well ,,i think we all took a dive to early some time or other ..not to the extreme of the person you mentioned Deli ....

[eddieg]

TOUCH YOUR COLLAR NEVER SWALLA NEVER GET THE FEVER,TOUCH YA TOES TOUCH YA NOSE, NEVER GO IN ONE OF THOSE.The Jarra version.