Coventry Buses - past and present

Not to mention the smoke up there CKV 1D and on a winter's rainy day - all steamed up. Going up the stairs in stiletto heels took some manoeuvring too, but they were the good old times.

For fans of Coventry's buses from the maroon and cream era, a post-war Daimler CVA6 model double-decker is currently being restored, again by Roger Burdett and his team. GKV 94 was new in 1950 and was one of nearly a hundred similar buses purchased by Coventry Corporation to replace many of the then ageing pre-war vehicles. It survived in Coventry until 1968, then was sold to Smiths of Long Itchington but was acquired for preservation in 1971. After 40 years it is once again in need of extensive renovation, expected to be complete in 2018.

That's brilliant news - can't wait to see it out and about

Annewiggy mentioned the excellent transport museum at Wythall in Post 577 but there is another much smaller transport museum which is also within easy reach of Coventry. The Aldridge Transport Museum (formerly the Aston Manor Transport Museum) has a couple of Daimler buses to give a Coventry connection, and also a few Midland Red buses and a solitary Stratford Blue which could have visited Coventry at some point. This museum is relatively small so it is ideal for a short visit and my recollections are that it was rather cold in there because it is situated in quite old industrial units in a trading estate. There are also a small number of other vehicles including a very nice Fordson lorry from the early 50's. Like most museums it is run by some very enthusiastic volunteers. Museum website Edited by Midland Red, 19th Nov 2016 7:47 pm (Link to website added )

We were talking to one of the officials about the Aldridge museum Not Local and shall certainly go. We were not sure if it was still going as it is not publicised very much. Easy enough to get to from Tamworth.

I used to hate having to breathe in all that smoke upstairs, but when the downstairs was full up, other than wait for the next bus, you had no choice but to go up into the smoke! lol (I could always still smell it on my clothes when I got home afterwards! lol). I've attached a photo here of one of the "STRIKER PLATES" that were fitted on the back of all the seats upstairs and I bet that many matches were used on this one over the years. This particular striker plate came off a 1952 Daimler from the Coventry Transport fleet, although it probably doesn't look any different to all the other striker plates on the seat backs of the rest of the Coventry bus fleet!!! lol.

I remember those old buses with the open platform at the rear. We used to delight in running and jumping on or off the bus whilst still moving. It would be against H&S today. As a young boy, I always went upstairs. Not because I smoked - I hated smoking and still do, but because it was great fun sitting at the very front and being so high up above everybody else (the general public). I used to pretend I had a machine gun and was massacring all the people in the street below! The other thing that all my friends agreed on was that when the bus turned a corner, it always seemed that the driver had not steered quickly enough, and that where you were sitting was going to crash into the buildings. Which never happened, at least not whilst I was a passenger. On one occasion, there was only one other person upstairs at the back - the nutter on the bus! He had the nickname the Professor, and I think he lived in Canley. But that's another story for another time.

I'd always assumed those metal plates were for stubbing cigarettes out rather than strikers, you learn something new every day. For a short length of time I caught the early morning bus to Walsgrave, I used to go upstairs and you could hardly see due to the cigarette smoke. Many people used to chain smoke (and cough) all the way to work. One regular would smoke four of five on the journey, lighting the new one from the previous before it went out. I sometimes wonder how we survived with our lungs intact

Yes, I wonder what harm all that passive smoking did to us innocent young kids. One day the bus was crowded, and sitting next to me was a little old chap who resembled Andy Capp with specs was puffing away when he suddenly had a really bad coughing fit, made me feel sick it did, it sounded like he were full of mucus ... yukk. I had to suffer in silence, Lord knows what germs he was coughing out ... I thought he was going to cough his insides out.

Am I right in thinking there were 'No Spitting' signs upstairs and down!

Yes, 49 - I hoped I'd taken a photograph of one, but sadly I didn't

I remember that all buses had signs both upstairs and downstairs which said 'Spitting Prohibited'. When I was a young child I asked my father why it was necessary and he told me it was from the days when some people had tuberculosis which necessitated them to cough and spit, thus putting others at risk of infection.

I am surprised no one has mentioned us poor girls/ladies having to climb those stairs in our 'mini' skirts, or was that not a problem

Yes Dreamtime, and stilettos didn't make it much easier!