The Great North Road Bus Trip Day 5: Whitby to Morpeth

Day 4 saw me abandon the Great North Road and survive an angry bus driver in Malton

Day 5: Wednesday, 20th March 1991

I left Whitby at 09.53 on service X56 to Middlesbrough, operated by "Tees & District", which was a short-lived spin-off from the National Bus Company's United Automobile Services intended to generate competition, but which soon ended-up in the hands of the German government-owned Arriva.  Although an "X" service, implying speed, it took longer to reach Middlesbrough than the service 93 which left at the same time but followed a more direct route. The 93 was a coach, whilst the X56 was the first (and as it turned out, the only) "Leyland National" bus of the trip.

A Leyland National in Middlesbrough

The Leyland National was a joint effort between two state-owned enterprises: the National Bus Company  (NBC) and British Leyland (BL), to develop a standard single-deck bus for the former's fleet. With 49 seats and standing room for another 20 or so passengers it was also intended to replace many double-deckers at a time of rapidly-declining patronage. NBC was such a huge customer that BL stopped producing its other models, many of which had been popular with other bus companies, who were now told they could only buy Nationals.  Not only that, but BL, following the example of Henry Ford, made it available in any colour you liked, as long as it was a wishy-washy green or a garish light red.  Only London Transport had sufficient clout to persuade BL to supply them in its own, more dignified, red livery.  In 1991 the National had been out of production for six years but it still dominated many former NBC fleets and it is surprising that this was the only example I came across on the entire trip. 

A trip highlight 

The X56 took an hour-and-a-half to get to Middlesbrough due to it following a meandering coastal route, the highlight of which (and, indeed, of the entire trip) being the ascent of Saltburn Bank, a sharp ascent from sea level to the town centre with a gradient of 25% and several hairpin bends that would be familiar to a Swiss Post Bus driver.  Rather than attempt to describe it, here is a You Tube clip, although the weather was better for my visit. 

The X4, shown on the clip, is the present-day version of the X56!

So far on the journey I had been paying single fares on each bus, but in Middlesbrough I discovered the existence of the North East Explorer ticket. Explorer tickets were an NBC initiative and allowed unlimited travel on the company's buses for a set price, Most of them did not survive privatisation, but in the North East sufficient commonsense prevailed and they remained available on most buses despite the fragmentation of ownership. The ticket would be valid on all the rest of today's buses and I could have used it to travel from Whitby, had I known about it then.

Buses in Stockton Market Place

After an hour in the town I made the very short hop over to Stockton-on-Tees. Unlike Middlesbrough, the town lacked a large central bus station with buses picking up around the market place, which seemed an acceptable arrangement.  

Bus 20: Stockton-on-Tees to Durham

Another lengthy journey followed, on another United Automobile bus, this time service 253 through what I described as "the industrial grot" of Teeside and the tattered remains of the Durham coalfield, including places such as Trimdon Colliery, to Durham itself on a not particularly comfortable single-decker arriving at 14.25.  A quick connection here saw me finally regain the Great North Road and also saw another new bus operator come into play - this time "Go-Ahead Northern", as the privatised Northern General Omnibus Company had become. One of the first villages the service 723 double-decker passed through won the award for the best-named village of the trip:  "Pity Me", followed shortly by the town of "Chester-le-Street" before reaching Newcastle at 15.30, where we pulled into the magnificent Worswick Street Bus Station.

Bus 21 (3rd from left): Durham to Newcastle

Newcastle had, and still has, a number of bus stations in the city centre and Worswick Street was used by services coming across the River Tyne from the south. Buses drove in from the rear of the station and up a ramp to the stands, which was steep enough to require at one time a system of wheel-chocks to be in use, to prevent them slipping back down the slope!  There are photos that illustrate this more clearly and text that explains the deficiencies of the chock-system on this link.http://www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/wp-content/themes/Old-Bus-Photos/galleries/newcastle_bus_stations/newcastle_bus_stations_ws.php  (Sorry about showing the full address, Blogger won't let me include this any other way!)

"The Hotel"

It was still a little early to stop for the day, so from Worswick Street I walked the short distance to Gallowgate Coach Station to see what the options were to continue the journey north. The best bet seemed to be Northumbria Motor Services' (which despite the retro name was formed from the pre-privatisation break-up of United Automobile Services) service 414 to Morpeth, which had the twin advantages of heading due north and following the Great North Road.  Morpeth, which I reached at 17.02, really was the place to call it a day. Buses onward were few and far between and the towns they served smaller and therefore less likely to have easily-found accommodation.  Not that Morpeth was particularly easy in that respect.  I should have known fron the way the lady in the Tourist Office slowly shook her head, sucked her teeth and said "Everywhere is very busy, I'm afraid it will have to be ----"the Hotel"!

Other than the cost - at £20.70 almost double the prices I'd been paying for B&Bs - I couldn't see what would be so bad about staying at an hotel, so I accepted the suggestion and she booked me in over the phone.   I was back in Morpeth in 2018 passing through on my Around the County Towns bus tour when the bus I was on took me right past it.  I recognised it straight away and have tracked it down on Street View:

My bed for the night in 1991

It's probably changed hands several times and now trades under a different name with decent online reviews, but at the time I thought it was awful. A grudging "welcome" at reception, payment in advance before seeing the room, no en-suite facilities (despite the price), no TV or radio  in the room and, on a day when I had been unable to get much to eat and drink when travelling, not even a kettle to make a cup of tea!  It felt more like a prison than a hotel!

But at least it was fairly central, so I didn't have far to walk into town for a meal and, as I recall, a few pints of Vaux Samson, brewed in Sunderland, in one of the few pubs I found selling cask-conditioned beer.

Today I was on the road for 7h 9m of which 4h 43m was wheel-turning time. Fares came to £6, although if I had known about the Explorer ticket that covered my travel for the rest of the day in Whitby I could have done it for an absolute bargain £3.50.  Total fare for the trip was now £37.50.

Once I eventually regained the Great North Road in Durham I followed it faithfully all the way through Newcastle and on to Morpeth.

to be continued...

The Great North Road Bus Trip Day 4: Doncaster to Whitby

Day 3 saw me visiting Maggie Thatcher and losing heart in Scunthorpe...

Day 4: Tuesday, 19th March 1991

The Great North Road was always more of a concept than a line on the map, with several variations followed by travellers over the years and Doncaster was somewhere where alternatives were available to the northbound traveller.  The main route ran via Pontefract and Castleford on its way to Scotch Corner but many travellers preferred the roads via Selby and York and then on to Darlington to re-join the prime route and it was in this direction that I chose to continue, at least to begin with.

Bus 15: Doncaster to York

I made a lateish start for me on the 10.12 "Selby & District" service 405 to York, which actually left at 10.16. The "& District" part of the name was another example of the old style of bus company names that has now largely disappeared. Fans of 1970s TV comedy will no doubt remember "Luxton & District" (but click the link if you don't).

Selby & District was split off from the West Riding Automobile Company when that company was prepared for privatisation. At the time, the government's belief was that creating a large number of small bus companies would make them easier to sell and would encourage them to compete with each other for passengers. Of course, economic reality prevailed and competition led inexorably to the survival of the fittest and the establishment of the much smaller number of much larger bus companies we have today, which no longer see the need to compete for custom.

To begin with, the "405" (another double-decker, hooray!) gave me a fast ride across the Vale of York until we hit traffic congestion caused by the queue for the toll bridge over the River Ouse at Selby, although  we arrived on time in York at 12.10.   There were noticeably more buses around on this stretch of the trip and those that I saw were carrying more passengers.

I hadn't been to York for some time, so spent some time there looking around. Every bus in the city seemed to be a different colour and I made a note of "Target Travel", "York City & District", "Reynard Bus" and "York City Rider" as operators, later finding that they were all in common ownership.

Bus 16 (right) York to Malton

The alternative Great North Road runs through Thirsk and Northallerton to Darlington and in 2017 I followed this route in the reverse direction on a journey from Durham to York as part of my trip Around the County Towns of England. However, in 1991 either buses in this direction were very scarce or perhaps as York lacks a central bus station and buses leave from a variety of on-street stands I just never found them.

Whatever the reason, I now took a huge deviation from my notional route, heading north-east on a "Yorkshire Coastliner" bus to Malton. (Yorkshire Coastliner was another spin-off, this time from another "Road Car" company, this one the "West Yorkshire Road Car Co,)  The bus had come through from Leeds, passing through the centre of York, which at the time lacked a proper by-pass so consequently suffered from delay caused by traffic. We were, however, only seven minutes down and were back on time in Malton at 15.30.

Incident at Malton

Bus 17: Malton to Whitby

I had an hour to spend here, before continuing on another Coastliner to Whitby, although this time we set off eleven minutes late after waiting for the arrival of the following bus from York. When boarding the bus I was surprised to find the door open but no driver in place, leaving me free to take a seat. In the days of conductors this was standard practice, but the introduction of one-person-operation, with the driver also collecting the fares, usually meant a closed door policy until such time as the driver returning from a break  was ready to start work again.  There were other passengers on board, but when the driver did show up he was very annoyed, demanding to know who had opened the door and threatening not to move the bus until someone owned up.

But the passengers stood their ground and everyone maintained that the door had been open when they got to the bus stop (although my photograph, taken earlier, shows it firmly closed). Eventually he had to give in - ungracefully - and take us on our way.  A fast run followed up to Pickering and over the North Yorkshire Moors past the "golf balls" of the Fylingdales Early-Warning Radar station.  At 18.00 it was quite late in the day to be arriving at Whitby without a bed for the night, but I don't remember any difficulty in finding somewhere to stay. Nor do I remember what I did in the evening or where I ate or even what I had to drink.  I think four days of bus travel was beginning to take its toll.

Today's journey was 7h 44m in duration of which less than half, 3h 45m was spent on the move, much of the rest being sight-seeing in York and Malton.  The fares came to £6.80 bringing the total cost of the trip so far to £31.50.

I followed the "alternative North Road" between Doincaster and York, but then went wildly off-course ending up on the North Yorkshire Coast at Whitby.

to be continued...

The Great North Road Bus Trip, Day 3: Grantham to Doncaster

Day two saw me almost lose a wallet in Rushden and get ripped-off in Corby...

Day 3: Monday, 18th March 1991

Janet worked in Stamford, so was able to drop me off at the town's bus station  on her way to the office for an early start to the day. I thought at the time that Stamford deserved a longer stay and I've been back since and discovered that it did. However, buses on the next stretch through the boundaries of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire were likely to be thin on the ground and I had no timetable so couldn't risk a delay.  I left town on the 09.00 to Grantham, a service 606 operated by the Lincolnshire Road Car Company, another former National Bus Company subsidiary then enjoying a spell of semi-independence under the unlikely ownership of the Yorkshire Traction bus company of Barnsley, before both operators became part of the Stagecoach group.

One eventual effect of privatisation was the disappearance of most of the quirky old bus company names such as Lincolnshire Road Car, Yorkshire Traction, Yorkshire Woollen District, United Automobile Services etc that co-existed alongside more conventional names such as " South Wales Transport Co" or " East Midland Motor Services" that had all survived nationalisation, only to fall victim to the corporate identity policies of Stagecoach and other big groups in the early years of the current century.

Bus 11  Stamford to Grantham.

Service 606 offered a fast ride along the Rutland/Lincolnshire border, through a number of very pretty villages that unfortunately did not produce many passengers. We crossed the East Coast Main Line once or twice and finished with a fast run up the modern A1 (The "Great North Road") to Grantham arriving at 10.15.  This time I wasn't surprised at being asked £1.95 for the journey. The Lincolnshire Road Car Co, like most large bus companies operating predominantly rural services, had a reputation for high fares stretching back many years.

I had been this way once before, albeit in the opposite direction on a journey to Stamford to sample the local beer brewed by Melbourne's Brewery before it closed in 1974. As I recall we arrived just too late to join the Camra-organised farewell tour of the brewery itelf and had some difficulty in tracking down any pubs selling Melbourne's beer, although we did manage a pint or two in Lincoln the previous evening. In those days the service was numbered 24 and the buses used were rather different from the Leyland Leopard coach I encountered on this occasion.

The Grantham to Stamford bus in 1974

Although both Stamford and Grantham were on the Great North Road the 606 - and the 24 before it - meandered off the main road to serve a string of villages lying to the east for most of the way.

Although I would have liked to continue to follow the route of the old road, the sparsity of buses in this part of the world now came into play. There appeared to be no buses on to Newark for several hours and no certainty of how I could continue northwards from there. There were, however, regular buses to Lincoln, which was vaguely in the right direction and it was on one of these that I continued my journey at 11.40, but not before paying a visit to Grantham's only tourist attraction - the birthplace of Maggie Thatcher, at which I certainly did not "pay homage".

Lincolnshire Road Car's service 601, which was a double-decker (hooray!), took me through another string of pretty villages with names such as "Carlton Scroop", Wellingore and Boothby Graftoe with additional timing points at "Fluck's Garage" and "Coleby, 1st Lane End", the latter suggesting a distinct lack of other features in Coleby to desribe a bus stop location!

Bus 13 Lincoln to Scunthorpe.

Despite the obvious attractions of Lincoln I allowed myself just 20 minutes there before leaving on my third "Road Car" of the day - this one a Leyland Leopard coach disguised as a "Coachlink" bus on service 353 to Scunthorpe (yes, there really were no better options!).  My notes say that we "meandered along back lanes for an hour or so" and that when we reached Scunthorpe I found it "an uninspiring industrial town with a 1970s-style pedestrianised centre"!   In fact, so "uninspiring" was Scunthorpe that I almost gave up the trip there and then.  The weather and the scenery had got progressively worse as the day went on and the general lack of useful buses led me to think at one point that I might have to stay overnight in the town. The only option, after a 90-minute wait, was to continue to Doncaster, and at the time the thought of a Monday night in an industrial south Yorkshire town didn't seem terribly appealing.  I got as far as trying to ring friends who lived near Leeds in the thought that I could jump on a train and go and spend the night with them, but they were out, which is just as well as the trip could have ended there and then!

Instead, and after that 90-minute wait, Leon Motors service 399, a Bedford coach, took me to Doncaster, but only after I'd established that the destination board "Haxey" in the windscreen was actually meant to convey the information that the bus was bound for Doncaster! There followed another "long meandering route through a bleak landscape in the rain" broken only by the crossing of the Trent as Gunness.

My mood brightened considerably on arrival at Doncaster.  For a start there was a Tourist Information Centre, still open despite it being after 17.30 and they swiftly found me a bed for the night in a friendly B&B just outside the town centre. The proprietors were interested in why I was in Doncaster, but when I told them I was "breaking my journey on the way to Scotland" they said they got a lot of custom like that and I didn't enlighten them any further. At least I was back on the Great North Road.

Today, I was on the road for 8h 35m, which was 5 minutes longer than it should have been, due to the last bus of the day arriving five minutes late. Five hours and twenty-six minutes were spent on the move and the rest waiting for connections or visiting the birthplaces of former Prime Ministers.  Fares came to £7.95 of which Leon Motors got £1.60 and the rest went to Lincolnshire Road Car. Total for the trip so far was now £24.70.

 I started and finished on the Great North Road but didn't seen very much of it along the way, except at Grantham.

to be continued...

The Great North Road Bus Trip, Day 2: Bedford to Stamford

Day one saw me escaping the "unremitting suburbia" and "grot" of north London to arrive in Bedford

Day 2: Sunday, 17th March 1991

Hugh left me at Bedford as it was the most convenient setting-off point for his train journey home to Huddersfield, leaving me to continue alone. Although one of the self-imposed "rules" of the trip was "a minimum of pre-planning" I had allowed myself an exception for Sunday, given the reduced bus services likely to be operating and also because I needed to be sure I could get to Stamford, where I had been able to arrange an overnight stay.

The lack of early buses meant that I didn't leave Bedford until 11.40 on the United Counties X52 to Rushden. Despite it being an "X" service it observed all stops. I was also disappointed that it was operated by a 23-seat minibus. So disappointed in fact that I failed to get a photo of it. A fare of £1.50 bought me a 35-minute ride which in turn meant that I had almost two hours to wait in Rushden for a connection.

I have two memories of those two hours. One was of the rather pleasant ninety minutes or so that I spent at the Rushden Historical Society's museum at the town's old railway station. It was made even more pleasant by the discovery that the old refreshment room was being operated as a licensed bar. A prominent notice declared that said bar was only open to Society members, but I reckoned that I could probably pass for one, which proved to be the case. The bar sold Greene King IPA, Rayments Special, Hook Norton Best Bitter, Hanson's Mild, Hall & Woodhouse Tanglefoot and Fuller's London Pride, still a line-up I'd find preferable today over that offered by many so-called "craft ale" bars.  A second notice in the bar advertised the Society's campaign to stop the entire station site - including bar - from being demolished to make way for the Rushden by-pass, something that was ultimately successful as it is still in business today.

Bus 8: Rushden to Corby

The second memory was less pleasant when shortly before my bus was due to depart I realised I no longer had my wallet! I remembered that the last place I'd seen it was about 20 minutes earlier when I'd had to open it in a phone box to check the number I was calling. A quick dash back up the High Street ensued and, to my relief, it was still there!  Another episode I suppose that just wouldn't happen today.

Wallet recovered, I was able to leave Rushden on another X52, this time a coach rather than a minibus but still observing all bus stops on the way to Corby.

Bus 9. Corby to Peterborough

I can't recall exactly how I'd been able to plan today's route back in those pre-internet days but whatever I'd used must have been out-of-date because  I was surprised on arrival at Corby at 14.56 to find my onward bus loading and almost ready to depart, leaving no time for the planned comfort-stop and tea break!  What was even more surprising was the fare required for the 55 minute journey to Peterborough on Viscount Travel's X65 (the third "X" bus of the day!) a whopping £3.65 which was more than twice as much as any other so far paid. Viscount was a spin-off from Eastern Counties, another ex-NBC company and its management were attempting to promote it as an upmarket ("the Marks & Spencer of bus companies") operation, which presumably explained the upmarket prices.

Bus 10. Peterborough to Stamford

After Bedford, the countryside had become more rolling and open, with Northamptonshire stone appearing in the villages. I thought that Corby was "a mess" and "a failed new town" The X65 took me through more pleasant  Northamptonshire countryside via Oundle and on to Peterborough at the edge of the fens.  At Peterborough, I had the choice of continuing almost immediately via Spalding, but that turned out to be a 16 seater "bread van" minibus all-too-common in that era and run by the "Cavalier Coach Company" so I opted to spend an extra hour in the town and continue later on Viscount Travel's service 303 directly to Stamford. Here I was met by my friend Janet who took me back to her home village by car for a good home-cooked meal and a visit to the village local "The Oak" which sold Greene King IPA, Abbot and Marston's Pedigree. Those beers would be considered unexciting today, but at the time I was living in Hereford where three-quarters of the pubs were owned by Whitbread, all of which sold a beer called "Flowers Original", memorably described by CAMRA as "liquid toffee apples" and another called WCPA, of which the initials spoke for themselves.

Today's fares totalled £8.35 (of which £5.20 went to rip-off Viscount Travel) making a total for the trip so far of £16.75.  The route via Bedford had taken me a long way off the Great North Road and I remained far off it all day, missing out the chance to visit the village of Stilton, which gave its name to cheese brought there from Leicestershire farms to be sold to coach passengers in the village's inns. I didn't regain the route of the famous old road until Stamford.

I was "on the road" 6 hours and 6 minutes today of which the wheels were turning for 2h 57m, the rest of the time being spent eating, drinking, visiting railway museums and panicking over a lost wallet.

to be continued...

The Great North Road Bus Trip

Most people don't travel by bus.  Most of those that do do so only because it's the least-worst option available to them for getting from where they are to where they want to be.

But I'm not exactly alone in enjoying a ride on a bus. You don't need to make decisions about which way to go, or continually check that you're going the right way. The driver does that for you. You can eat and drink safely as you go and the bus takes you through all sorts of places that you would never otherwise get to see (although admittedly sometimes you wish you'd never seen them). If gazing at the passing scenery begins to pall you can read a newspaper or a book and there are always the other passengers to watch and conversations to eavesdrop on - or even join in.

Although more people than you might think enjoy a day out on the buses, there is a rather select band of us who enjoy longer trips extending over several days.  One of the first such trips that I made was in 1991 and as the notes I made at the time - and the photographs - have just come to light as another benefit of lockdown I thought I'd put them on the blog.  As with my earlier ramblings about train trips in eastern Europe I'm doing it primarily for my own benefit to produce a permanent record, but anyone who thinks they might be interested is welcome to read it.

LONDON TO EDINBURGH BY BUS - MARCH 1991

As ever with such trips it was necessary to set a few ground rules and the introduction to the notes I made at the time says: "A journey by local bus, with a minimum of pre-planning, from Trafalgar Square in London to the Scott Monument in Edinburgh.  No express coaches to be used and "limited stop" buses only allowable when no other services are available".  The route was to be broadly along the line of the Great North Road, although in practice there were to be significant deviations from that route.  Nor was it a race.  In those pre-internet days it was very difficult to find timetables for services in other parts of the country and not knowing where you might be each night made booking accommodation impossible anyway, so I generally aimed to stop between 5 and 6pm each day to be sure of getting a bed for the night.

DAY ONE, Saturday, 16th March 1991:   London to Bedford

Bus 1:
Trafalgar Square - North Finchley

Although this was to be a solo trip I was joined for the first day by my friend Hugh. After a night in the Royal Adelphi Hotel near Charing Cross (which I doubt has ever been patronised by royalty!) we set off from Trafalgar Square on a  London Transport "Routemaster" at 10.00 on service 13 to North Finchley.  This wasn't the original plan - which was to get a 29 to Wood Green - but was changed when we rrealised the 29 was not a Routemaster.

We had an "unexciting and poorly-patronised" run along the Finchley Road, following a route familiar to us due to it being that taken by National Express coaches to and from the North-West, past Swiss Cottage and Golders Green and reaching North Finchley at 10.55. The fare was £1.10.  On arrival at North Finchley we found a café for a cup of tea.

Bus 2: North Finchley to Potters Bar.

The second bus of the day was again  London Transport, this time service 263 to Potters Bar. Rather more modern than a Routemaster, my notes record this as being a "Scania double-decker", but I've always been more interested in bus services rather than the buses themselves. Leaving North Finchley at 11.33 this route took us through "unremitting suburbia" relieved only by Barnet town centre and some open country to the north. The terminus at Potters Bar was at the bus garage, where we arrived at 12.03 after paying 90p for the ride.

Bus 3: Potters Bar to Welwyn Garden City

The 1990s were an interesting time for bus watchers. The industry outside London had been de-regulated and opened up to competition in 1986 and the state-owned National Bus Company (NBC) had been split up and privatised, leading to a multitude of new small operators appearing. Some of these were owned by former NBC employees, and it was one such firm that provided our next onward bus. To catch it we had to walk to the railway station and there we boarded the 12.27 "Welwyn Hatfield Line" service 302 to Welwyn Garden City. Unlike the first two buses of the day this was a small single-decker (or large minibus) another feature of 1990s bus operation in the UK. The 302 itself took us on a 45-minute run through housing estates and uninspiring 1980s developement accompanied by "Capital Radio" relayed through speakers on the bus in a misguided attempt to entertain the passengers. We were more than happy when we arrived at "WGC" at 13.19 having paid £1.40 for the priviledge. My notes record that I found Welwyn Garden City "quite impressive, with wide open central streets but few useful shops"!

Bus 4: Welwyn Garden City to Hitchin

"United Counties" was a subsidiary of the National Bus Company that had been aquired by Stagecoach, although in 1991 that wasn't always obvious as not all the buses had received the new corporate livery. One such was the Bristol VR double-decker on service 314 to Hitchin, on which we departed at 13.50. We chose this route because it ran only four times a day, something which somehow made it more interesting to us and we were both surprised to find a double-decker allocated to such an infrequent service. We weren't surprised to find it very lightly loaded and in fact we ran almost non-stop all the way to Hitchin, arriving at 14.20.  My notes don't mention what we did about lunch today, but we did spend some time in the Bricklayers Arms, a Charles Wells pub, which might be the answer. I was surprised to find that Hitchin had "a pleasant coaching town atmosphere" despite laying off the route of the Great North Road.

Bus 5: Hitchen to Biggleswade (right)

From Hitchin we could have gone directly to Bedford, which we had identified as our destination for the night, largely because it was known to have a large number of pubs owned by what were then considered the local, independent breweries Charles Wells and Greene King (how times change!). However, we opted instead to catch another United Counties bus on service 177 to Biggleswade, our motivation apparently being that we found the name amusing and that Greene King had a brewery in the town. We didn't see the brewery but we did find time between our arrival at 15.45 and our departure for Bedford on service 176 at 16.30 to enjoy a pint in a pub in the attractive market square.

Bus 6: Biggleswade to Bedford.

The 176, another United Counties route, got us to Bedford at 17.15 and after a short search we found the "Grafton Hotel" near the station as a base for the night.  I was surprised to find that every bus bar one had been a double-decker and also noted that no smoking was allowed on any of them, not something that could be taken for granted in 1991. The scenery en-route struck me as "fairly grotty" on the whole with the London sprawl only really stopping at Hitchin, which I felt was a town that could have been in the midlands. The countryside around Biggleswade with its large, open flat fields reminded me of East Anglia. The weather had been dull and cloudy all day and by the time we got to Bedford it was raining heavily.

On Day One we were underway for seven and a quarter hours of which 3h 57m were spent actually travelling, the rest being waiting, eating, drinking or sight-seeing. The total fare for the six buses used was £8.40. Our route out of London initially took us to the west of the Great North Road, but we rejoined it at Finchley and followed it as far as Welwyn Garden City. Our route via Hatfield took us parallel to the Great North Road, albeit several kilometres to the west, before returning to it at Biggleswade then turning away to the north west to reach Bedford.

to be continued....