Memories of life on the private buses of south Durham

According to the article headlined “Take your seats for the song and joke special”, they liked to crack corny jokes and get their passengers joining in classics like The Sun Has Got His Hat On, the British Grenadiers and the Umbrella Song. At Christmas, everyone on the Tow Law service joined in their carols.

Driver Rick Peart and conductor Arthur Sianti pictured by The Northern Echo in the 1970s when they became famed for their comedy double act on the buses (Image: Carol Vivian)

When a passenger went upstairs, Arthur, of Whitby Way, Darlington, would cheerfully shout: “Don’t forget to draw the curtains – and make the bed.”

Smoking passengers had to use the top deck, and if one complained that Rick was breaking the rule by having a cigarette in the cab, Arthur would say: “That’s because his legs are too short to drive from upstairs.”

There was a serious point to the madcap mayhem as Rick, of Arthur Street, Darlington, said that when aggressive drunks got on, they would join in the songs and calm down.

Rick Peart with his Whessoe wagon after he finished driving United buses (Image: Carol Vivian)

“Later, my dad worked for Whessoe driving a low loader wagon which was so big it had to have police escorts,” says Carol, who still has his PSV badge.

Rick Peart’s PSV badge from his United days (Image: Carol Vivian)

A clock presented to Heather Bell driver Billy Robinson on his wedding in 1935 (Image: Sarah Navin)

SARAH NAVIN writes to tell of her grandfather who drove for Heather Bell, a bus company formed after the First World War by Dobson Baldwin and Thomas Wren Barlow in Tow Law.

In 1962, Heather Bell was taken over by Weardale Motor Services and Sarah has evocative memories of using their buses in the 1970s:

“My grandad, Billy Robinson, drove for Heather Bell.

I’ve still got the clock, given by his employers Baldwin and Barlow, and the barometer, from the employees, that were given to him to mark his wedding on June 8, 1936.

Both still work.

He told the story that as there were no driving tests, drivers had to do a hill start on Newton Cap bank.

They put a match box behind the rear wheels and if it wasn’t squashed you could drive.

A barometer presented to Heather Bell driver Billy Robinson on his wedding in 1935 (Image: Sarah Navin)

He also drove Foden wagons for Redmires Quarry.

Once going down Softly into Stanhope, the brakes failed and he wasn’t able to stop until he got to Frosterley.

That must have been a hair-raising ride!

In the 1970s and early 1980s, we used to get the Weardale from Bishop to visit my gran in Wolsingham and go up to Horn Hall in Stanhope to see grandad.

“On a market day the buses were always full, my sister had to sit on Mum’s knee and I stood in front of them as children had to give their seats up for adults in those days.

I didn’t have much of a view.

I remember there was a metal footrest that I stood on.

It was a round pole, usually covered with white rubber grips, that ran along under both the seats in front.

There were silver metal handles on the edge of the seats, a silver ash tray and cigarette stubber on the back of each seat and all the seats had numbers.

If we were lucky enough to have a window seat the windows had curved black seals around them and I used to follow the raindrops as they ran down the windows.

Most of the buses were Leyland Leopards, fitted out by Plaxtons in Scarborough.

All the drivers knew us as many had driven with grandad.

We used to go on the bus trips to the Lakes, Scottish Borders, Scarborough and the mystery tours before we had a car – it was the only way we could get out and about.

Looking back mum and dad were very brave taking two young children on bus trips.

I also remember the town service bus run by OK in Bishop.

It was a double decker and had a conductress who had short curly brown hair.

She had a big brown leather bag strapped around her for the money and a ticket machine with lots of different coloured buttons and a little thumb shaped leaver to press to get the tickets.”

MEMORIES 789 and 798 told of the red London Transport double deckers which were sold cheaply after the Second World War and ended up trundling around the lanes of south Durham.

They were known as “RT” buses, but we didn’t know why until Geoff Webb grabbed the wheel:

“I was a student in Durham from 1973 to 1977.

I never saw any ex-London double decker buses in that area but we did have the joy of Northern General’s Routemasters.

“I think it’s likely that RT stood for Regent Three as that was the AEC chassis type.

“I think this because the single deckers produced at the time were on Regal Four chassis and were called RF.”

GNE’s SHN634 in Galgate, Barnard Castle, on July 13, 1964. Picture courtesy of the JW Armstrong Trust (Image: JW Armstrong Trust)

PETER HOLMES brings us up to date with the buses in Barnard Castle and how he had take them when the famous railway line over the Pennines was closed:

“In the 1950s we had Durham District Services (DDS) with their green double deckers operating between Barney and Darlington before they were taken over by United with their red and cream buses.

Percival’s buses ran from Barney to Richmond and then there were coaches run by Maude’s and by Burrell’s.

There was also a single deck United service which ran from Barney to Darlington via Whorlton with a driver and conductress (known as a clippy) although they soon introduced One Man Operated (OMO) buses on many routes.

I spent three years at Bede College in Durham and regularly travelled by bus.

Although it’s only 27 miles, the journey took hours, as I took the bus from Barney to Bishop via all the little villages and then had to change for a Sunderland bus to Durham.

The picture of the GNE coach in Barney in Memories 798 was taken in Galgate at its usual stand outside the Kartoon Cafe near the Three Horse Shoes pub.

When British Rail closed the Stainmore line to passengers, my family had to travel by GNE to Temple Sowerby to visit my grandparents who lived at Station House and I was always travel sick!

The driver dropped us off at Station Road end but it was still a long walk to the station where my grandfather lived and worked as ‘porter in charge’.

The station was south facing and got the sun all day and there was always a good collection of geraniums in the waiting room and the platform tubs were always full of bedding plants.

There was no mains gas or electricity and he got milk direct from the nearby Skygarth farm.

The railway closed completely in 1962 and the track was lifted with undue haste.

Belah and Deepdale viaducts were – a shortsighted act of state vandalism.”

THE Galgate picture also caught the eye of Tony Hull in Darlington:

A GNE bus bought in 1977 and called “Silver Jubilee”. It had a silver band running around it and was used to take Darlington FC to away games (Image: Unknown)

“SEEING SHN634 brought back memories of my childhood as my dad, Albert Hull, drove this service for GNE.

He worked for them for about five years, and I spent most of my school holidays in the garage in Darlington washing the coaches, inside and out, and sweeping up – the owner of GNE, Ernie Brown, would leave a few pennies around the garage then ask me to sweep the floor, although I wasn’t aware of this at the time.

“Ernie had around seven coaches.

The one that did the Carlisle run was a two stroke Commer, XHN133, and the one that usually did the Keswick run from Middlesbrough was a Plaxton Panorama MHN 800E.”

“THIS is how I travelled from Witton Park to Bishop Auckland on a blue Stephensons’ seen here outside the Bondgate bus stand toilets in the background,” says Dale Daniel.

“Years later it was to be found in the Brighton area with a change of colour!”

Indeed, LKT 991 is a Bristol bus delivered in 1950 to Maidstone & District Motor Services which operated it in their green and cream colours.

In the 1960s, they sold it onto Stephensons’ buses, of High Etherley and Bishop Auckland, who painted it blue.

However, after Stephensons was taken over by OK in 1970, the bus returned to the south coast, was repainted in Maidstone’s colours and now works in preservation.

A Sentinel steam railcar at Bishop Auckland station in the 1920s. Picture courtesy of John Askwith (Image: John Askwith)

MOST of the private bus companies we’ve been looking at began in the 1920s and so represented a threat to the railways which, in those days, still had barely economic branchlines winding into the countryside.

John Askwith sends in this remarkable picture to show how the London & North Eastern Railway immediately tried to fight the buses: by putting a bus on the tracks.

Between 1922 and 1925, short journeys on LNER fell by 36 per cent as passengers got onboard buses, so in 1925, the LNER ordered its first Sentinel steam railcar.

It was made at the Sentinel Waggon Works in Shrewsbury, and was a steam engine and a passenger coach rolled into one.

It could hold up to 60 passengers, and by 1932 LNER had 56 of them buzzing along less used lines, like Bishop Auckland to Wolsingham or Darlington to Tow Law.

The Sentinels were largely parked up, in Darlington, during the Second World War and the last one was withdrawn from service in 1947.

All of them were scrapped, as the petrol engine triumphed, encouraging Dr Richard Beeching to close many of the Sentinel’s rural lines in the 1960s.

Dale Daniel’s picture of LKT991, the Stephensons’ service from Bishop Auckland to Witton Park which ended up in Kent (Image: Dale Daniel)

“THIS is how I travelled from Witton Park to Bishop Auckland on a blue Stephensons’ seen here outside the Bondgate bus stand toilets in the background,” says Dale Daniel. “Years later it was to be found in the Brighton area with a change of colour!”

Indeed, LKT 991 is a Bristol bus delivered in 1950 to Maidstone & District Motor Services which operated it in their green and cream colours. In the 1960s, they sold it onto Stephensons’ buses, of High Etherley and Bishop Auckland, who painted it blue.

However, after Stephensons was taken over by OK in 1970, the bus returned to the south coast, was repainted in Maidstone’s colours and now works in preservation.

LKT991, formerly of Bishop Auckland, is now a preserved bus in Maidstone & District colours (Image: Wikipedia)