LAURENCE KNIGHT comes over all nostalgic about family holidays spent on the Isle of Wight in the 1970s when Lodekkas, seemingly ancient K-types and growing numbers of new VRs and Leyland Nationals presented the appearance of a big fleet in microcosm
I was filled with horror by my father`s statement: ‘This year we`re going to the Isle of Wight for our holidays.’ What? No more fascinating car journeys to the Norfolk coast? No chance to observe the buses of Cambridge and Norwich, the cherry red Bristol/ECWs of Eastern Counties contrasting with the green of those of my native United Counties?
Not to mention passing the mysterious bus-filled yard in Horstead, to the other side of Norwich, found subsequently to be the premises of the dealer Ben Jordan. And in any case, going ‘overseas’ held no excitement for me. I had no interest in foreign buses.
The dull weather of late July did nothing to lift my spirits as the family Ford Zephyr 6 forged its way south; it was all winding single-carriageways in 1969, and a good part of the journey was spent staring at the back of a Tesco delivery lorry with a top speed of 38mph.
My father aggressively puffed out clouds of Silk Cut smoke as he wrestled the column change up…
