NOSTALGIA: Bus ride to nostalgia

The bus and its driver, Bert Blower, a man who had 56 years’ experience with London Transport, were unexpected but welcome visitors to the Crossroads Hotel in Weedon the week before the photo’s publication.

Mr Blower, from Cheddington Road in Edmonton, London, was bringing the bus from Bolton, where it had been used for giving rides to shoppers, to its home at a transport museum in Dulwich.

Thankfully Mr Blower was experienced with driving buses on long journeys, because back in 1926 he frequently drove buses between Birmingham and the capital.

He even remembers Barrack Hill in Weedon when “it was a hill”.

In those days, Mr Blower said, it was quicker to walk up the hill than drive up it.

And for the statisticians among you, in those days it took anything up to 13 hours to travel from London to the Midlands.

The bus is a 1925 Dennis London Transport Bus.