Vintage bus is helping passengers with social distancing

Vintage bus is helping passengers with social distancing

Over the years I have been delighted to feature on this blog several incidences of classic machines - in this case vintage buses - being successfully pressed back into everyday use in varying capacities.  From a Christmas Day Routemaster service in Keighley, West Yorkshire, through tours of the Yorkshire Dales in an AEC Regent, to timetabled ex-London Transport AEC R/Ts serving towns on my local heritage railway's route, these numerous occurrences are proof that these vehicles are not just museum pieces and can still provide a useful service alongside more modern means of transport.

The service in this instance is a twice-daily run from Gateshead in Tyne & Wear to Chester-le-Street in County Durham, North Yorkshire, as part of a regular scheduled route operated by local bus company Go North East.  With the social distancing rules currently in place giving public transport operators major headaches (most bus companies at the moment being forced to run at barely 25% of their normal capacity) Go North East have hit on a wizard wheeze to try and maximise capacity and minimise passenger contact on its busy Number 21 route by wheeling out a 1960s Routemaster from its local heritage fleet in order to help take some of the pressure off the rest of its buses.

source - The Northern Echo

The result looks to be a wonderful trip back in time married to a [hopefully] safer method of public travel for the people of Tyneside, who I hope will be able to enjoy and appreciate this little bit of vintage effort to combat the social effects of Covid-19.  Whether Go North East will be able to continue with it in light of the direction things seem to be taking again remains to be seen - we can only hope that another lock-down can be averted and that demand for the service continues to be high enough to warrant the ongoing use of this splendid old Routemaster.  In any event it is great to see yet another vintage bus being brought back to its original role, especially to aid people in these particularly difficult times, and I am sure it will not be the last time such a story features on here.  In the meantime a jolly well done to Go North East and the North-East Bus Preservation Trust and here's wishing many more happy miles for their service 21 Routemaster.

Timewarp fashion treasure trove discovered in Houghton-le-Spring house

Timewarp fashion treasure trove discovered in Houghton-le-Spring house

Ladies!  Get thee to Tyne & Wear next Saturday!!

You know how I sometimes half-jestingly, half-wistfully wish - along with most of you I imagine - that there was a warehouse or boarded-up mansion somewhere complete with sealed rooms full of vintage clothing from our preferred time period?  Well, here is an example of it come true!

A bittersweet example in many ways, as the story behind this "treasure trove" is a particularly poignant one.  Although the "widowed-at-a-young-age-never-remarried-lived-alone-hoarded-things-died-in-their-nineties-nobody-knew" story is not necessarily an uncommon one (but maybe its unusual nature attracts comment and makes it appear more commonplace, if you take my meaning?) there is always something particularly touching about it and this one is no exception.   Perhaps it is the thought of the lady's routine of travelling and returning home with new suitcases to be filled with the best dresses - stashed away and destined never to be worn - over a period spanning 70 years.  Yet if she was happy (although I do wonder about that - was this the sign of a life that felt unfulfilled from the early death of a husband?), taking annual holidays and living to a grand old age, then fair do's to her say I.

source

Now her collection can be someone else's gain (yours, perhaps?) as this immeasurable amount of vintage clothing - valued collectively at £100,000 - is set to be sold off next month by the lady's friends with the help of a local vintage shop owner.  If you want to make a note of the date, girls, it's the 7th December and the sale will be held, suitably - and no doubt interestingly - enough at the lady's house in Houghton-le-Spring (no address given, but doubtless contacting the shop - the oddly-named "Dregs of Society"(!) - would provide it).  Some of the really valuable pieces like the Victorian and Edwardian wedding gowns of the lady's mother and grandmother are earmarked for the local Beamish Museum, however, which seems only fair.

A remarkable discovery, then, of a life's legacy - a fantastic fashion timeline.  I'm sure you'll join me in echoing the thoughts of the best friend and her hope that all these items will find new owners to use and appreciate them - a positive aspect of wearing vintage that many of us have commented on in the past.  It all makes you wonder what else might be out there...