[Phil Blinkhorn]

I'm not sure from where I get my interest in transport - it certainly isn't a family tradition. In the late 1940s/early 1950s my father used to be a maintenance electrician at Williamson's ticket printers in Ashton who printed tens of millions of bus tickets. He sometimes brought transport magazines home and, even before I could read, I could identify various types of buses and trucks so perhaps it stems from there, but it doesn't explain the interest in railways or the deep, lifelong, passion for civil airliners.

My first memories are of riding on a Ashton Crossley Mancunian from the depot on Mossley Rd to the town centre with my mother and my brother in a push chair - about twice the size and weight of today's pushchairs.

The conductor got off the bus, folded the chair and placed it under the stairs. At the terminus he took it off the bus and erected it on the pavement. As my sister, born 1951, wasn't with us and my brother, born 1949, was in the push chair this would have been circa 1950.

I had to take the bus to primary school from Limehurst to the town centre from 1952 until we moved closer to the town in 1953. This involved travelling on the Ashton - Rochdale route #9 which was jointly run by the Ashton, Oldham and Rochdale transport undertakings. Ashton provided their all Leyland PD2s for through running and their Massey bodied utility Guy Arabs were used on Hathershaw "turnbacks". These vehicles were resplendent in Ashton's patriotic red, white and blue livery. There was great competition amongst small boys to stand at the front lower deck bulkhead on the PD2s where there was a circular heater outlet which doubled as a steering wheel in their 5 and 6 year old imaginations!

Oldham's maroon and white livery was borne by their splendidly turned out all Crossley double deckers as their contribution to the schedule backed up by Roe bodied PD1s and PD2s.

Rochdale offered something totally different. Their lined out blue and cream livery was carried by Weymann bodies on AEC Regent chassis.

Due to the timings of the school day, most of my trips were on the Ashton PD2s but, on the homeward journey - if my Mum did some shopping, we'd travel in the style provided by workers in Addlestone and Southall.

Before we moved to Stockport in 1956, the odd Weymann bodied Daimler appeared from Rochdale but, in the last month or so before the move, new AEC Regents appeared with the new look AEC bonnet, updated Weymann bodies AND - though I didn't find this out for a further 2 years - Gardner engines, built in Patricroft.

Deep in Ashton territory, things were changing. The Massey bodied Guy Arabs started to be withdrawn. New Guy Arabs appeared in their place but they weren't new. I was quite an observant 6 year old and I noticed both old and new vehicles had registrations in the same series. What was happening was that the old chassis, far more durable than the wartime, uncured wood framed bodies had taken the short trip to Errwood Rd Stockport to be re-bodied by Crossley.

In 1955 the last couple took a longer trip to Leeds where Roe rebodied them and I can recall perfectly being on the swings on Ashton Marketplace as an 8 year old when one travelled past carrying trade plates as, presumably, it was on some form of work out prior to being licensed. This was also delivered in the new blue and primrose scheme which I first saw and travelled on on an all Crossley double decker (memory says it was #8) operating the Hurst Circular at (I think) Christmas 1954.

This scheme had been adopted due to both cost and the the modernisation of the paintshop to spray painting. The patriotic livery was both difficult to mask and apply and was intricately lined out.

Whilst some opposed the scheme in the letters column of the Ashton Reporter, the appearance of the new colours brightened the town.

Also in 1955 I was on Katherine St when I saw in the distance, heading towards the town, a Leyland double decker in the new colours. I assumed this to be the first PD2 to have been repainted but, as it drew closer I noticed differences in the front profile and then the UTB letters of the registration as opposed to the LTC letters of the all Leyland batch.

This was one of the first, if not the first of the 1955 batch of Crossley bodied Leyland PD2s.

We moved to Heaton Moor in 1956. Mauldeth Rd/Didsbury Rd, 100 yards from where we lived, was the terminus of the #26 and the short workings on the #9 from Reddish.

In those days Stockport had many pre war all Leyland double deckers still in service, a few pre war all Crossley double deckers, a large collection of all Crossley post war double deckers, two batches of all Leyland PD2s and a number of Guy Arabs with Massey utility bodies (which Stockport managed not only to have modernised, rather than rebodied, in the late 1950s but managed to keep in service until as late as 1964 - not all wartime wood framing was poorly cured then!).

There were also the 1936/37 batches of Leyland TS7 and TS8 half cab single deckers with English Electric centre entrance sliding doors, a streamline curved stripe in the brown used to line out the red and white scheme on the rest of the fleet and masses of polished woodwork and art deco shaded interior lamps. Their main stage carriage duty was to service the #75 from Green End, via the town centre to Offerton but most of their work was on school trips to playing fields, swimming baths and, in the case of St Winifred's School, the "Burnage Bus" which daily transported Catholic children from the Green End area at the Manchester boundary to and from the school.

Stockport had not received any new vehicles since the delivery of all Leyland and all Crossley double deckers in 1951 and it was to be another two years before any further deliveries were to be made. The vehicles were always pristine, the fares were low (though the Suez crisis and fuel rationing added a halfpenny to all fares at weekends and outside rush hours for a period) and the undertaking regularly made a profit at a time when many of its competing and neighbouring undertakings were losing money.

Most Stockport vehicles ran until they were at the end of their useful lives - though they were always well maintained - and one of the TS8s was rebuilt with a chair lift and handicapped facilities for the County Borough Welfare Department when withdrawn in the early 1960s and ran for many more years resplendent in an off white scheme with a light green stripe instead of the brown and was much loved by the staff at Heaton Lane and later Daw Bank depots who cared for it.

The other operators in the area at the time were MCTD, who provided Northern Counties bodied PD2s for the #16 Chorlton -Stepping Hill service, with the odd MCW PD2 of the post war standard Manchester design filling in where necessary. By 1958 the "standard" MCW vehicles did not appear anymore and the Manchester contingent were normally the Northern Counties bodied vehicles with the odd MCW Orion bodied PD2 of the 1956 batch appearing. Manchester also did early morning "workman" turns on the #9 and #18, normally operated by post war "standard" MCW PD2s and Crossley bodied Crossleys.

North Western operated the #80 from Mersey Square to Altrincham and this was normally the preserve of the massive looking, noisy and intensely vibrating Bristols which had been delivered in the late 1930s and had been re-bodied by Willowbrook in the early 1950s.

From 1956 they were joined by Leyland PD2s with "tin fronts" and lightweight bodies (to cut costs) though they did boast platform doors. They were fairly miserable vehicles to look at and ride on - not helped by the fact that, as all North Western double deckers of the period, they were low height which meant the upper deck had bench seats seating four placed on a platform, accessed by a sunken gangway on the offside of the vehicle.

In 1958 I went to grammar school which meant travelling daily to Manchester. This broadened my horizons and brought me into contact with Ian Allan's Buses Illustrated - a monthly periodical which both answered many questions and imparted technical knowledge -and with a wider range of vehicles.

I'll deal with 1958 and onwards, and some other observations during the next few days.