Blast From The Past 4

It's been sometime since I last posted on my boyhood days so here is the next installment. I guess the day I started secondary school was THE day as it was the start of my unaccompanied bus travel - 2 buses each way to school everyday in the most interesting area for buses in the country. I was so lucky in that National Bus Company used the Medway Towns as their testing ground and so I was subjected to a multitude of wonderful vehicles to choose from. Here is a selection of vehicles that were around when I was 11.

Daimler Fleetline 6122 MKO122F leaves Pentagon Bus Station, Chatham

Ex Northern General Fleetline 5007 GCN 809G. This vehicle was later to become a towing vehicle

Manual AEC Reliance 3754 EKJ 114C.

Volvo Ailsa 3581 LKP 381P and High Height Bristol VR 5101 KKM 101P in Chatham and District centenary livery

 

Metropoliitan Scania 5254 KKO254P

I have to say at this point that if God gave me a chance to ride one vehicle from my past it would be the above Metro Scania. I still consider them the nicest deckers ever built and I remember when 5254 had a new engine fitted - they only had two gears but this one didn't go into top until it was dooing 40mph and flew! Of all the vehicles i rode in my childhood I never got a bigger buzz as when one of those turned up. Incidentally there is still a Young Offenders Prison at the site of the original Borstal, which took its name from the village.