Alan Millar’s sideways view of the bus scene
Please send any stories, photos, (digital, prints or slides), cuttings and other information of off beat bus matters direct to: Buses, PO Box 14644, Leven, KY9 1WX Or e-mail: alan.millar@keypublishing.com
Like me, I suspect that your eyes often go into super high definition mode anytime a bus appears in a television programme or advertisement.
“Have they got the bus right?” Mrs M will often ask, in tones that manage to convey both sympathy and a hint of “does it really matter?” as she guesses I’m about to suggest that a Routemaster in pre-1959 London or a postwar RT in the 1930s is as anachronistic as some of the later idioms used in scripts for Call the Midwife set in the 1960s.
With adverts, the challenge often is trying to guess where some have been filmed. One ten or more years ago had Stagecoach single-deckers in the background, in the era when they wore stripes rather than swoops, but on these the bodywork was unfamiliar, and the blue stripes were a different shade. That’s because whatever was being advertised — and creative agencies take note, some of us remember the bus and not the name of their client’s name — was filmed in New Zealand.
Which brings …
