h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Many thanks for an excellent and evocative entry. Personally I thought the RM was a definite step too far with its curvy shape. Brought up in Bexleyheath in the 1950's and '60s we did not see many of the new-fangled things for quite a while. For me a bus is an RT. Nothing else quite fits the bill.

I did not travel on many as I walked to primary school, cycled to secondary schools (and pretty well everywhere else). I do remember that then, as now, I was an inveterate fiddler. I was with my father on the way from Sidcup to Welling. Upstairs, at the back of an RT the rear window is the emergency exit with nice shiny aluminium handles. I fiddled, twiddled and turned and managed to unfasten the window which fell out into the road behind . The bus conductor was not at all pleased but did not demand compensation, letters of apology or the services of the police. I suppose today I would have ended up with an ASBO.

What I did do was to buy "Red Rover" tickets and spend many Saturdays on the buses. London Bridge, Tower Bridge, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum were regular haunts but sometimes, just for the sake of it, I would just go as far as I could collecting bus miles. I seem to remember a Red Rover ticket cost five shillings but that seems a lot out of pocket money. You could also get a Green Rover but that never appealed. Nothing to see but miles of fields, orchards, North and South Downs. Nothing of interest there for a ten year old boy.

For a short while I did start to collect bus numbers. Deeply worrying!

Now, although we have three cars and a motorcycle between the two of us, I still like to get on the bus or train when I can. Next trip is using an Arriva day ticket to start at Crewe, travel along the North Wales coast, change at Llandudno junction to the Conway valley line, change at Blaenau to the Festiniog Railway, change at Porth Madoc to the Cambrian coast line and return via Machynthleth and Shrewsbury. Light nights needed as this is at best a twelve hour trip. Can anyone lend me an anorak plus a notebook and pencil for the guide entry.

Nice article. Sad to see them go.

Phil, I have a purple anorak you can borrow, and I have loads of notebooks and pencils. Better still, can I come with you, it sounds wonderful

Years ago I did a train trip round North Wales in a viewing train- seats facing sideways and it would have been wonderful if I hadn't developed a migraine and didn't see a thing.

Websailor

Hi WS
A purple anorak? Now that's a shade too far. I did have a purple shirt in the 60's (and a scooter and genuine ex US Army parka).Highly innapropriate as a few years later I was stood in a big crowd outside the US embassy shouting "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today".
Sorry to hear about the migraine. Last time I took the train to Blaenau I didn't see a thing because of the fog.