Isn’t it also something to do with getting rid of bus conductors too, I’m sure that there was a rare breed of front entrance Routemasters as well, which would have helped.
About 40 years ago, the famous Bartons Bus Company suffered a catastrophic fire at their Chilwell depot, Nottingham. Quick solution, a convoy of Routemasters drove up the M1 from London and took over. It was strange to see these beasts in Ilkeston market place, with London Transport hastily painted out, but still sporting all their London adverts and destinations such as Spondon, stuck over those large LT route boards.
Anybody know what happened to them as presumably they were still relatively new and went back to London, there may still be Bartons tickets in the used ticket box, not such a daft idea.
When Crich Tram museum was taking off, I was in the Nottingham Trolleybus Group, which had connections with them, and no-one had ever thought of going through the old used ticket boxes on these trams, some of which hadn’t seen service for years, what a collection we built up.
Ok, Ok, I used to be a bus anorak, but what you see today is pretty sad, at least First have painted up one of our local buses in Eastern National colours, looks the part too.
Any other former keen types.

Passing on quickly from the last contribution.
Who’s been watching the Transatlantic Sessions on Fridays, BBC4, over the past few weeks, awesome, the last one is tomorrow at 20:30, don’t miss it.
A perfect blend of Irish and Scottish Folk with American Country, like it or not, the musicionship is absolutely incredible, I can’t fault any of it.
It’s beautifully filmed and performed, there are no particular highlights, every song and performer has their merits.
If anyone stands out, it has to be Joan Osborne and Eddie Readers voices, the girl who sings in Gaellic and the amazing Jerry Douglas.
I was lucky enough to see JD perform live with Allison Krauss a couple of years ago, he is the master of the slide guitar, to see him adapting his National Steel to Gaellic folk songs is beyond belief.
I’ve checked up on Amazon and the whole package is available on DVD on Nov 12th, looks like a good birthday present for me, please, please missus…… she will, she was speechless with it all too, passing words, ‘Looking at these people play, it makes me wonder why we even bother to take our guitars out of their covers’.
It certainly makes the X-Factor unforgivable.

2.I was still at school,it was in 1965 at Eltham Baths,made famous by the wrestling broadcasts on ITV ( remember Jackie Pallo,Mick MacMannas etc ?).They performed on the wrestling ring but without the ropes and corner posts etc.[/QUOTE]

Sounds fantastic, tell me more.
Yes I remember the wrestling too, something to watch on a cold wet saturday afternoon when we couldn’t go out trainspotting or building dens.
The ring surface must have made the drums sound amazing.

Not much said about dogs.
My Jack Russell, Scooby Doo, is priceless, he’s 11 years old, never been ill, only ever been to the vets for the yearly injections.
Meggy our springer, on the other hand suffers from every disease going, epilepsy, ear and skin infections, you name it, she costs us a fortune, but do we resent it, no.
We saved her from being put down by her previous owners, the scum bags, and we love her, thats the price you have to pay, we don’t regret it, we keep her alive, and it’s almost the mortgage, no regrets.
Even our 4 horses cost less than her.
One good thing, we don’t have cat poo in the garden, they both hate cats, or at least, pretend to, Scoobies bestest pal was Elsa, a good old Ginger moggy, that succombed to a thoughtless driver.
We found that certain treatments can be bought more cheaply off the internet and purchase them from there, no complaints about vet costs, you do whats best for your pals, otherwise, you would’nt have them, they don’t come cheaply, but thats the price you pay for having your dinner scrounged at night, and having to go out when you don’t want to, why do we do it?

Got the latest 10 track album from Ray Davies (ex Kinks) which was given away in Sunday’s Times.It’s called Working Man’s Cafe and is a welcome return to catchy tunes from one of Britain’s best tunesmith’s.

Now explain to me why he did it, given away in one of Murdoch’s papers too, can’t figure it out, bit the bullet and bought it meself though.

Anyone seen the Kinks, saw them at the Nottingham Palais about 1974, they were amazing, Ray was wearing a white suit, I recall his rendition of ‘Cigreets and Whisky ‘nd Wild Wild Women’, backed up by much spraying of the audience with bottled beer, brought the house down.

Really good show, funny how the weather is always spot on for the Autumn Airshow, I can’t remember bad weather for this particular do and I haven’t missed many.
My Hungarian guest was well impressed, not only with the flying, but with the museum too. It was interesting to walk round the LWH and have him explain the different riding characteristics of the various Soviet vehicles, having trained with the Red Army while serving with the Hungarian military during the Cold War.
Just a few questions.
We spent a lot of time round the hangars and missed a lot of the initial commentary, though I did spot various bits of RazorBack P-47 in the restoration hangar, when does the rest arrive.
We were on the flight line and saw the wingtips being removed from Sally B and realised there was a problem, I gather that an engine had blown, how serious is it.
I gathered that there was a bit of banter about the Vulcan, were we given the hint that it may fly next week.
We were in front of the Polish spitfire wondering why an army of photographers were snapping 2 old dears sitting in chairs, then realised that Neil Oliver of ‘Coast’ fame was lurking between them, what was that all about.
The flying was great, particularly the bad lad nearly parting my hair in the Hellcat.
Who was flying Ferocious Frankie, some pretty aggresive stuff going on there, and was the formation with the F-16 unrehearsed, no reason why not with such skillfull pilots, who were they by the way.
Interesting to see the BBMF Spitfire taking part in the tailchase with the Buchon, quite unusual for them we thought.
Thought that the finale with the Sukhois was magnificent, all in all a great day, and getting out wasn’t too bad in the end.
Prize of the day went to the bloke wandering about in the Luftwaffe officers uniform, especially when he spent 10 minutes in the toilet rearranging his moustache, we were crying with laughing and had to get out fast, Solly couldn’t understand why the crowd weren’t offended and thump him one, I had to explain about the British sense of humour!

When we were there for the BBMF day the gates opened at 10am but we were late anyway so it didn’t matter 😀 so we’re just going to aim to be there for 10ish again and hope for the best haha:D

Gates opened at 9 for the BBMF day, after a bit of coaxing, could be earlier today, weather check on Met Office site looks excellent.
Am about to make some butties, and load up the car, look out for the Hungarians again, they won’t leave DX alone.

I know this is, at best, a tenuous link with Historic Aviation, I’ve run it by the Mods though and they’re fine.

For a publication, I’m after some information which I’m hopeful someone on here will be able to help with. From research I know the bunkers were mostly sited at WW2 Obs points, that they were controlled from a larger group HQ and that they were in clusters of 3 with one post being a master post.

What I can’t seem to find at the moment is the composition of the clusters, as regards the individual posts within the cluster. Also the posts were numbered, again at this time I can’t find reference to all the post numbers, the odd one or two but not all.

I’ve researched at length so unless I’m missing something obvious, any help, advice most welcome as ever.

Interesting research, I didn’t know they came in threes, I’m only aware of 2 near here, between Wethersfield and Dunmow, I haven’t a clue where the third one is, any idea?
Interestingly enough, while investigating the one near Wethersfield, we were threatened by the local farmer, fortunately the chairman of the parish council intervened and saved us from the effects of shotgun blast.
What was strange was that he insisted that it was a WW2 observation post, nothing more, despite my observations on it’s Cold War use, he dismissed the idea as nonsense which made me wonder whether local councillors were sworn to secrecy over the use of these things.
The one near Dunmow was sold by the local council a couple of years ago for a few grand to a military collector. He parked a couple of APC’s over the top of it for a while, but these have since dissapeared, I don’t know what it’s used for now, cosy country residence perhaps.