YOU'M NEVER GOIN' A' GUESS WHAT'S COME IN 'ERE
The conductor boards 2976 and moves to the front of each deck in turn, his clipboard bearing the list of passengers. He looks at the nearest person and loudly demands “Vot is your name?”
A D9 on the D9, with the Ebenezer Chapel in the background. [photo: Dave Allen]
The reply right across each deck is the same - “Don’t tell him, Pike!” - in tribute to one of Britain’s greatest comedy moments. Another BaMMOT route tour begins in fine form amid snatches from the same Dad’s Army episode. This tour, however, was to be rather different. Instead of the usual rural itinerary, we responded to requests for a tour on 2976 and for the Black Country. Full days around Brum or what little remains of the Black Country seemed too much so the centenaries (allegedly!) of the creation of BCT and BMMO gave the excuse for a combined tour.
2976 thus spent the morning blasting around the interwar and early post-war suburbs of southwest Birmingham, which are surprisingly little changed. Those aboard, and especially Kevin Hill as driver, enjoyed 2976 booming through traditional Guy territory - after staggering up to Castle Square, it stormed the hills on the Bristol Road with ease.
Selecting a route for the afternoon aboard D9 5399 had proved quite stressful. No less than four points of interest had disappeared under traffic islands, often associated with the creation of Merry Hill, a traffic menace itself to be avoided. Another intention had been to run to Kinver but the trees have fought back sufficiently to hazard 5399’s immaculate paintwork, but finally a route was established.
Preserved D9s often display the D9 service number but 5399 actually posed on the Dudley local route itself. The Ebenezer Chapel provided the immediate background and it was possible to eliminate any modern intrusions from the shot. Surely a GD6 would hove over the horizon at any minute! Pardon my ignorance, but could someone explain the Ebenezer bit? We’ve read the memoirs of Bob Mills and Stan Letts and anyone doubting their comments on hilly terrain will have had confirmed just how hard the Midland Red buses around Dudley had to work. If 5399 wasn’t going uphill then it was pointing down. There seemed no flat ground. Just how did the AD2s get about?
Who would have guessed that the prettiest photo spot of the day was the 41 route where a fine array of daffodils occupied the foreground? The photo locations were as follows:- Beckbury Road, Weoley Castle (22F), Quinton Road (22), Queen Elizabeth Hospital (21), Westhill Road, Kings Norton (41), Lickey Road, Rednal (62), City Road, Dudley (120), Ednam Road, Dudley (260), Gornal Wood Bus Station (D6), High Street, Wordsley (885), Bridgnorth Road, Wollaston, Stourbridge (S53), Foster Street, Stourbridge (245), St Andrews Street, Netherton (D9), Harborne Road, Warley (221).
The passengers seemed to enjoy this very different tour with the possible exception of the wife whose husband hadn’t told her the Black Country didn’t consist of rolling crop-filled fields with gambolling lambs behind half-timbered farmhouses. And the title of this piece? The astonished comment of a waiting traveller, just old enough to remember the old regime, who leapt for his mobile phone as the D9 pulled into Gornal Wood Bus Station, a spot where a D7 ticking over on the 137 to Birmingham would surely still not look out of place.
Malcolm Keeley
Steve Wakelam was aboard the tour and has added the following notes:-
The most enjoyable part for me was the entire section of the 41 route from Cotteridge to Sunbury Road. As a small child I grew up in Longbridge and well remember local residents petitioning the council for a better bus service. We lived in Crowhurst Road and it took the best part of a mile walk to catch a BCT bus.
One clear memory I have was in the spring of 1957 watching a BCT Guy coming into Crowhurst Road. On board with the conductor was an official-looking gent with a clipboard. They were planning a new route and must have been advised that the turning circle in Crowhurst Road was much larger than it actually is. It took about five minutes and a lot of careful manoeuvring to turn the Guy around as the road slopes very steeply on both sides. No surprise then when a few weeks later a letter was circulated stating that it was not possible to provide a new service to our estate due to the unsuitability of the roads. Strange then that many years later, when the 47 began and no road widening had taken place, the same buses were in use and many more parked cars littered those unsuitable roads!
However in July 1957 a compromise resulted in the 41 service, which firstly terminated at Turves Green outside the Jolly Fitter public house. The Bundy clock was opposite, outside the church. After passengers alighted, the bus would move into Coombes Lane then reverse into Longbridge Lane before turning back into Turves Green. This was less than satisfactory and possibly the only BCT route requiring drivers to reverse. In August 1958 a short extension was opened to Sunbury Road after the completion of a turning circle and terminus next to Central Avenue.
Anyway another great day out. Many thanks to Malcolm Keeley, Kevin Hill, Phil Ireland and everyone who aided and abetted them.
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