1. We commence with two examples of double-deck coaches that once plied their wares on the major roads and Motorways carrying passengers from London to towns and cities up and down the country. Both eventually found a new life carrying tourists showing them the sights around the English capital. First up is a former Standerwick Eastern Coachworks (ECW) bodied Bristol VRLL which would have mainly served the North West of England seen here in May 1977 as it trundled along the Embankment beside the River Thames. If you look carefully into the front top deck windscreen, one can just make out the comfortable armed seating.

2. In the late 80s and early 90s the Ensign bus company were well into providing sightseeing tours of London and back then utilised a fleet of former National Bus Company Metroliners. This particular one would have previously been operated by the Shamrock & Rambler subsidiary based at Bournemouth and in turn would have served the West Country on a regular basis. Here one of the fleet paused on Lambeth Bridge in order to allow visitors to view and photograph the Houses of Parliament and the River Thames looking towards the City.

3. From the large to the small. This little Albion Nimbus was operated previously by the former Ramsbottom Urban District Council and batted around Lancashire. In later years it migrated south into Derbyshire and was used by the Chesterfield Cricket Club, possibly as their team transport. However, by 1993 it was to be found laid up in a yard at nearby Clay Cross where its running days were over, possibly to await a fate on a sticky wicket.

4. Cricket no doubt was on the sporting curriculum for the St.Joseph’s School for Boys situated in the North Kentish town of Orpington. Here this former Lancashire United Transport vehicle had by June 1976 become the official transport for the school, the fine Plaxton lines and AEC Reliance mechanics being guided passed one of the 2646 London Daimler Fleetlines on the north side of Hyde Park Corner. It appeared to retain the dual-purpose seating with which it was supplied to LUT in 1963.

5. In contrast the distinctive lines of the ECW half-cab bodywork on this Bristol L made an interesting composition as it posed in the village of Rotherfield Peppard north of Reading on the occasion of a preserved bus running day in October 1994. By now in different hands it too had been the official school transport this time for the Princess Margaret Royal Free School based at Windsor. However, the vehicle’s origins lay locally with the wonderfully named Thames Valley Traction Company Limited.

6. Similar mechanics to the previous vehicle lay beneath the bodywork of this wrecker seen here on display at a preserved vehicle event in Dewsbury during September 1979. Yet another Bristol L, this time from the Wilts & Dorset company, but far from distinguishable as the previous bodywork had again given way to a more practicable design for the work to which it later became accustomed.

7. The origins of this wrecker though were much further away from the previous two being of Leyland PD3 mechanics and East Lancs bodywork. However, some of the origin design remained, the upper deck of this former Stockport Corporation bus removed before it became a service vehicle for Chesterfield Transport, seen here in New Beetwell Street in January 1994.

8. Another Leyland PD was this operated one, once with Sheffield Corporation then South Yorkshire Transport and seen here with the iconic stacks of the power station beside the M1 Motorway near Meadowhall in February 1991. Whilst the stacks have disappeared I understand that the vehicle may still be in existence.

9. From half-cab to full frontal, so to speak. ECW bodywork is again evident on this wrecker at rest in the Bristol subsidiary’s Stroud depot of the National Bus Company (NBC) back in August 1985. A sort of jack of all trades this, with a reasonable cab area for the crew, a towing hook and bar front and rear, and what appears to be a large fuel tank on the back area.

10. The distinctive cab area on this vehicle is all that appeared to remain intact of this Bristol FS5G initially operated by the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company. As it arrived at the 1987 Showbus event at Woburn little was left of the Lowestoft based ECW double-deck bodywork. However, it was still a useful tool having been transformed into a towing vehicle, although one wonders whether it doubled up as a tree lopper going by the strange metal affair created above the cab area.

11. Talking of which, this now brings us onto a few tree lopping creations. Firstly a similar vehicle but with bodywork all apparently intact, operated back then by the NBC subsidiary United Counties. An earlier event at Woburn, this time in September 1982, saw this bus and trailer in attendance. However, despite the notice on the rear destination area which stated that it did perform tree lopping, one does just wonder how this was achieved from a fully closed top vehicle.

12. From landlocked Buckinghamshire to the island of Wight off our South Coast. The Southern Vectis company nowadays in the hands of the North East England based Go-Ahead Group was one the many subsidiaries of the NBC during the 1970s and beyond. July 1976 and one of their fine fleet of Bristol Ks number 703, had succumbed to the attention of the ‘man with a can opener’, seen here in the back of the depot at Ryde.

13. The final knockings of the NBC in 1985 saw this ECW bodied Daimler CRG6 removed from front line service by the Trent Motor Traction Company. Based at Derby and chopped off in its prime the vehicle by then was assigned to less arduous duties than carrying passengers around the highways and byways of Derbyshire, instead it trundled between tree-lopping duties along those same roads. Although the message “OVERHEAD REPAIRS” appeared more in line with a different kind of infrastructure such as cables, wiring and the like.

14. Eight years on and a similar vehicle lay over in the bus station at Derby probably between duties. Although instead of tree-lopping it could well have doubled up as a towing vehicle. The company by now was in private hands, the vehicle’s origins disguised by the registration transferred from a much older bus, a 1960s Leyland Tiger Cub single-deck.

15. From tree-lopping to tree-hugging maybe. There was little information left on the slide mount to help identify where this image had been captured. Suffice to say though that the vehicle a former Leicester City Leyland PD3 with East Lancs bodywork was by now in a far more relaxed environment as a Playbus-cum-home.

16. Another Leyland PD3 was this former Southdown Motor Services version, far from the vehicle’s original operating area along the South Coast of England. This full fronted Northern Counties bodied type was by 1983 at work on quite different duties in Middle England. Here along with several others it was owned by the British Shoe Corporation and putting its best foot forward was employed on staff shuttle duties in and around the East Midland’s City of Leicester.

17. Shuttle duties were also the fate of this former Maidstone & District Marshall bodied Daimler Fleetline seen here at Dover in September 1978. Vehicles of this type were useful inasmuch their dual-door design aided access for Seaspeed passengers and luggage. The bus had not travelled too far as it was by then in the hands of the East Kent subsidiary of the NBC shuttling back and forth between the docks area and the main railway station.

18. Back down onto the South Coast but further westwards another station to docks shuttle bus service was based at Weymouth in August 1981. This Leyland National still operated by the NBC Western National subsidiary moved the travellers from the railway station just over a mile through the town to the Sealink Channel Island ferries but unlike the previous bus, had the additional feature of a trailer to transport the large quantities of luggage. The trailer appeared to be one of the type initially used by the fleet of Routemasters on the Heathrow Airport services.

19. Another trailered vehicle was this former Brighton Borough Willowbrook bodied Leyland Atlantean, but in this case much further away from its original operating area. Here at Heysham on the Lancastrian coast it was in the hands of Lonsdale Coaches and served the ferries that were operated by the Isle of Man Steam Packet company.

20. Am unsure whether this vehicle was delivered to the privatised East Kent Road Car Company post NBC era, in the form we see it here. This Scania K112 featured a Berkhof body that had obviously been adapted to carry wheelchair bound passengers, and here at Trellisick Gardens beside the River Fal near to the quaintly named village of Feock, we see the side lift in action when the vehicle was engaged on a touring holiday of gardens in the West Country.

21. Staying in the West Country this time with the Western National Omnibus Company, but much earlier in July 1978. Helston bus garage at that time played host to this mobile training unit in Bristol LS5G fleet number TU6 and previously 1684. It looked a bit forlorn by now but was obviously also used by associated operators Devon General and Greenslades.

22. Another one from the combined Bristol and ECW stables was this SUL4 version built ideally for the narrow West Country lanes in the early 1960s when traffic was lot different from what it is nowadays. What was once number 627 in the Western National fleet was seen here in 1972 engaged in a quiet occupation, employed as a workmen’s hut on a building site off of Headstone Lane in the North West London suburbs.

23. Almost 42-years on and something much bigger was this Dennis Condor that although created in the United Kingdom, had probably been assembled in the Far East before used in daily service. Eventually the bus along with many others returned to the UK and was put to work as a support vehicle within the National Health Service and used on Sure Start projects. Based in Chesterfield the vehicle was seen here on a local project in March 2003.

24. Originally delivered to the Claribels bus operation in the West Midlands in late 2004, I am unsure whether this East Lancs bodied VDL DB250 was actually placed into standard revenue earning service. However, by September 2007 it had moved northwards and over the Border, the vehicle seen here in Princes Street, Edinburgh on some sort of promotional exercise.

25A (ABOVE) & 25B (BELOW). Almost at an end but these two images illustrate how a bus can be utilised in all sorts of ways. Previously operated on stage services in East Anglia with Ipswich Buses, this DAF SB220 Optare Delta turned up in Chesterfield in April 2004 parked near to a soft furnishings store. Inside, the vehicle had been transformed into a display area that featured sixteen different types of reclining chair.

26. And finally, time for something completely different. We are constantly advised through the media that alternative forms of transport are necessary. So after the demise of the trolleybus back in the 1960s, twenty-odd years later in 1985 this Alexander body and electrical power was applied to Dennis Dominator chassis number 770 and supplied to the South Yorkshire Transport PTE as their fleet number 2450. It was captured back in August 2000 on service at the Sandtoft Trolleybus Museum in North Lincolnshire.