1960s Torquay United team bus?

The little bus in picture one would have been a Regent with a manual gear box. I drove these as well as the other two models but can't recall too much detail of them but the 110 route? was that one of the three Buckland routes or was it to Newtake?

The second bus is a Leyland Atlantean - one of the very first buses specifically built for one man operation, although the route12 (NA to Brixham via Torquay and Paignton) had conductors and a good many of the models at NA weren't even fitted out for one manning. The gearbox Dave refers to was a "pneumocyclic" semi automatic.

The bottom bus is believe it or not the most "modern" of the three being a 1966 Regent "front loader" which incredibly the crews of Eastern National were daft enough to be foisted on with as a one man vehicle with the driver swivelling his seat around to serve passengers through a little hatch behind his left shoulder....................personally I thought they were bloody daft yokels for agreeing to do that and costing their clippies their jobs - a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas!

These buses were a pig to drive with great big long gear levers, heavy clutch and steering and a ruddy hot water pipe running up your left side so close it was easy to burn yourself......................dreadful if you had to drive one up through Highweek Village with it's hundreds of gear changes and tight bends but you could get your own back on the gurning old miseries who seemed to frequent that route by revving like feck and letting the clutch out on hill starts and send them tumbling back to the rear end or bouncing back down to town over every hump and bump you could find we used to say to the conductor............."you let 'em on, I'll sit 'em down!"

The no2 route shown was surely one of the country's most scenic. Known as "Up The Coast" it left NA via Kingsteignton down the Teign Estuary,Teignmouth, Dawlish, Dawlish Warren and up the Exe Estuary via Starcross, Kenton, Exminster and into Exeter. The last bus had a peculiar vehicle exchange at Starcross whereby the crew of the Southbound would cross over the road and return to base with the Northbound vehicle and vice verse. You could always bet your bottom dollar that you would be allocated a right crap heap to lumber Exeter with on that duty. If they had names it would have been a sort of *"Steve Tully"

I liked going "Up the Coast" - there was always a fine selection of females to get through over a year or two!! In fact I'm not so certain there aren't a whole generation of little "Butlers & Jacks" who were spawned during the off duty periods of shift work!

* Who remembers the open toppers named after the old sea dogs?

Sir Francis Drake, Sir Richard Grenville, Admiral Blake?

How about Sir Desmond Dekker? A Victim of one of the best bits of graffiti I ever did see that one!