It’s late September in 1959 and a small boy age seven is staring in disbelief at the front of a large red double decker bus.

“Where’s the engine?”, he cries out.

A Most Uncomfortable Coach Trip

My family decided that we’d all go down to see the Blackpool Illuminations, but to do that we’d take the bus to Morecombe, book into a Bed & Breakfast room, then take the local bus to view the Illuminations at night before going back to the Bed & Breakfast and leaving for home in the morning.

Sounded like a good (and cheap) plan, but for one small problem: we lived in Glasgow and Morecombe was about 160 miles away - and this was way back in 1959, no fancy motorways then. This is where the nightmare started. I was only seven, but I remember there were lots of stops, since there were no toilet facilities in our smelly old bus, which, if I look back now, may have been an old Leyland PS1 or PS2. I can tell you it was the most uncomfortable long journey in this smelly old bus and the other buses we transferred to, where everybody smoked.

It probably took well over seven hours before we alighted at Morecambe - at 5.30am in the morning! We had to hang around until 6.30am before we could go to our Bed & Breakfast room. It would have been difficult to keep control of a hyperactive seven year old like me, but luckily we found an all-night shelter that had coin operated machines. I vaguely remember winnng 4 plastic finger rings - what was I supposed to do with them? I was told they were real diamonds and to shut up.

Where Is It?

We finally settled in to our room and looked around Morecombe, went to a restaurant in the afternoon, had a look around again, but don’t ask a small boy what it was like, he’d be bored out of his head and would not have remembered anything - except for one thing…

We got to the bus station to find the bus that would take us to Blackpool and apparently I had disappeared. They found me staring in disbelief at a giant dark red bus - with no engine! I looked underneath the front of the bus - nothing. I looked through the passenger door, there did not appear to be an engine next to the driver’s seat. I was really puzzled.

Just then the driver and lady conductor came along and I blurted out, “Where’s the engine?”. The driver laughed.

“It’s at the back.”, he said.

I tried to run to the back of the bus but the conductor stopped me.

“You’re not allowed in the operational area, son.”

“I’ll tell you what”, said the driver, “I’ll start her up and I’ll escort you round to the back, as long as you take my hand.”

With that, he opened the passenger door, sat in the cab and started the bus up. He took my by the hand and escorted me round to the back of the bus, then opened the engine cover.

I was confronted with this big noisy, smelly engine and I got a bit frightened and tried to move away.

“It’s ok son, you’re safe as long as you don’t touch anything.”, said the driver.

My mother thanked the driver for his kindness and took me away. I was still in awe of the dirty big engine and I had so many questions I wanted to ask the driver. How can he steer it? Why can I see the road at the bottom of the engine - won’t it fall off?

It is now 66 years later and I still remember that incident. I’m so glad they found the engine.

The Blackpool Illuminations

Blackpool illuminations by Steve Fareham, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Image cropped.

Our evening finished off with a trip on the local bus through Blackpool and viewing the wonderful Illuminations display. Glasgow had their own lights at Christmas which used be magnificent until the frequent storms put paid to more elaborate displays. But nothing could compare to the Blackpool Illuminations that evening, the streets, the tramcars, even the tower itself brilliantly lit up in a myriad of gorgeous colours.

The it was back to our Bed & Breakfast room - and the dreadful journey back home in the morning.

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