link here  | |  tools  |  share:
photo size: medium 640 new

opobs
recent  |  interesting  |  random  |  favorites  |  contacts  |  sets  |  tags:  
The Leyland Atlantean
The Leyland Atlantean

It was 1960, I was 11 years old and mad keen on Western Welsh buses. One day my friend asked if I had seen the new double-decker Leyland Atlantean, with the engine at the back - I hadn't and I was madly jealous, I was the bus enthusiast, why had he seen one and not me! This caused a new pattern in my habits, from now on I would have to walk home from Oldcastle School via Cowbridge Road instead of Ewenny Road (we lived in Priory Road in those days) just in case an Atlantean from Cardiff should pass by. "You're late getting in for dinner today" my mother would enquire. "Oh, I came Cowbridge Road way for a change" it was actually a much longer way home and left me very little time for lunch before nipping off to school again for the afternoon.

It was February, a wet school day with the rain pouring down and I was sent off to school in my Robert Hirst raincoat and school cap which kept me mainly dry, except for the bit where the coat stopped and your wellington boots began and I was feeling miserable as the cold rain trickled off my coat, down my legs and into my boots. Already my knee-length socks had slipped down and the now-damp lining inside my boots was rubbing my bare legs.

As I trudged miserably down Ewenny Road even the sight of a regular service bus passing didn't lift my spirits, it was a Tiger Cub, probably of the LKG or MUH series which usually ran the coastal routes; one of the school buses chugged wearily by, it was a half-cab of the DKG series, still in service for schools and work contracts but withdrawn from most passenger services by this time. The school bus made a left tun into St Marie Street but I didn't, I walked the extra few yards to use the South Street entrance and then, I couldn't believe my eyes, coming down Cowbridge Road was a Western Welsh bus, the likes of which I had never seen before!

I forgot all about the rain and how miserable I felt, here in front of me was the one thing that I wanted to see and it fulfilled every expectation, it was gorgeous!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The photo shown here is from my large collection of bus pictures which I have accumulated over the years. I should like to have shown one taken in Bridgend Bus Station but you'll have to make do with this one at Cardiff as it best illustrates the TUH series vehicle I saw on that day in 1960.

© All Rights Reserved
Taken on: January 1, 1960
Tags: Everybody's photos tagged with bus bus Everybody's photos tagged with Western Welsh Western Welsh Everybody's photos tagged with Weymann Weymann more » Everybody's photos tagged with Leyland Atlantean Leyland Atlantean Everybody's photos tagged with Cardiff Cardiff « less
Sets appears in:   • Childhood Memories    • Buses    more » • Weird, Strange & Eccentric!    « less
Stats: 7,122 views / 9 comments
Link to this photo view:
Link to this photo large view: