Coventry Buses - past and present

A remembered poster in Coventry Transport buses, with the image of a conductor facing a passenger (old lady?) "Don't just say thrupence (3d), tell him where, it's up to him to state the fare." A far cry from today's electronic ways to pay!

It will have to be back to Northampton then, isn't that where shoes are manufactured, Oooooo and good drops of the brown stuff! Well it was in my day.

Sadly, but with pride I share this. Always present at Coventry heritage days were this lovely couple, whose lifetime careers were carting Coventry folk about. Mr & Mrs Bailey, stand proud for this picture. Sadly, I have learnt of the sad loss of Maureen. It was my joy & a privilege to meet them from time to time, the last being a chance meeting when they were attending a celebration at the Belgrade, a year or so ago. This picture says it all. Picture from my friend Ken. Thank you.

Brings back memories of when I was norbutt a bairn. Me mam would take us, on a weekly shopping trip basis, into town on the bus from Coundon (nobody called it the city centre in them days). I remember repeatedly asking her what inner circle meant. I was too young to understand her answer and could not envisage a roughly circular route around Cov. I seem to remember the appropriate bus stop being on the Holyhead Rd, somewhere near Kingdom Hall (never understood that either!) and Lillian's grocers, and the number 14 springs to mind. Maybe the 1 has been truncated in the photo?

You're quite correct, Slim. Inner Circle was no.14. The image, of course, is taken in the days of preservation and not when the single decker was in service.

Yes, I used the No. 14 regularly to 'go into town' - way back when I was a 'schoolie'. A very handy route that was.

The Inner Circle was a very useful bus, it used to stop at the end of our road, Poole Road. I used to go on it most of the way to Livingstone Road baths, with a bit of a walk at the end, but it was better than walking all the way up Lydgate Hill. My dad and our next door neighbour used it to get to Highfield Road, they were lost when it stopped. In the summer there was a trip called the Outer Circle that went a few times, my friend and I went on it a couple of times and you got to see round the outskirts of the city. Yes, Slim, we only ever went into town as well.

Yes, Anne, I have many happy memories of the Inner Circle and the Outer Circle too. We used the Inner Circle to go from Walsgrave Road/Binley Road to Grayswood Avenue, and walk the rest to the top of Holyhead Road to visit my grandparents.

A Dennis bus, an unusual visitor at Holyhead Road McDonalds today (hope it wasn't the reception venue )

Now owned by Catteralls of Southam so presumably on layover.

Morning all, Hold tight please. I've just listened to an interview on local radio with National Express, who are seeking to recruit twenty new, career minded drivers. I tell you what! If I wasn't qualified in my chosen career & was of working age, I would be straight down for an interview. It's no easy job, I did class four training forty years ago for a charity, the training was no easy task then in a five speed crashbox, but I loved it. Modern buses are very high tech, huge in proportions & beyond my competence nowadays. What I liked in the interview was the emphasis on career.

I've always think of the Oxford Dictionary definition of career; "move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way"

I believe there has always been a tendency for people to use bus driving as an entry into coach driving. You get your PSV licence paid for and you work on the buses for a few years to show competence/experience before advancing your career (coach drivers get tips, bus drivers don't). Coach firms like this as it saves them having to run training courses. Bus companies less so!

Does anyone have a higher resolution copy of this image? Or is alamy the best available? I'd like to get the registration mark of the bus on the left, it looks like HP442 but that wasn't allocated to a bus. The vehicle though is one of the first post war corporation buses (WW1 that is), an AEC model YC from 1919.