Memories of Barrows Buses.

Trusting everyone had a good Christmas and Happy New Year to you all wherever you may be.

One LRU member mentioned in a posting about Dalton in Furness and being the birthplace of the painter George Romney. During my sea days I was contracted to work on several Lamport and Holt ships under Blue Star Ship Management . Lamport and Holt operated mainly general cargo ships to South America and more recently recaptured some of them on canvas.
The one attached ( At the top of the page ) shows the Romney named after the artist which sailed under Lamport and Holt in the 50's to 70's. I had several adventures to Latin America and will recall them in future blogs.
This painting is still available for sale, painted as a spec work for the 2008 calendar, though most others have sold. Details available by emailing me direct or via JOHN EARNSHAW at earnshaw.j:googlemail.com.

Over the past few years on both Southlake's, and Talk and Chat I have recalled a few incidents of memories of Barrows bus fleet so for LRU members and visitors here are some of them..
Transport has always been a fascination to me, in early days I well recall trips with my parents to town and the beach at Walney or the Coast Road and even on the Ribble services through the country lanes to Ulverston or up to Ambleside.

Several historians and enthusiast have written very competent articles on Furness's transport history and am not trying to compete here, but mention a few things I remember.


At Roose the bus service used to terminate at the west end of North Road opposite Jackson's garage, the double deckers actually reversing around the corner where the phone box stood then moving across to the stop opposite the cricket field. It was only after requests to council and the planned extensions to North Row around to Leece Lane did the stop move to the end of the second block around 1959/60 as I was at school at Roose Primary and remember my Mum always telling me to watch out for the buses which passed our home almost at the corner of the first block on South Row.
Sometimes playing on our bikes in the summer evenings a driver who was perhaps new or just forgot would turn into the wrong block, usually the first one !! Often they would brake down creating quite abit of interest for us all and education in learning new words as the driver tried to start the bus to no avail.!!!
As I grew to know the fleet with the numbers it became even more interesting seeing which ones were on the service each day. On the Roose Service three buses operated daily. The circuit would -if on time, have one bus leaving Roose and would pass the Ship Inn bus around Second Gate or Friars Lane. It would also pass the Harrel Lane bus in either Marsh Street or Ramsden Street. On arrival at the Town Hall the next Roose Bus would be just leaving , and our bus would continue onto the Tea House before returning to the Town Hall stop to make up the following Ship Inn Service. Alternating so on for all three.

Services began around 5.30 am with several Shipyard buses passing the house and the twenty minute service operating Mon day to Saturday until around 11.30pm. Sunday service began around 10am lasting until about 11pm.

Barrow operated a fleet of around 70 buses, at its peak in the 40's and 50's it was alot higher. Crossleys, Guys and Leyland's had been the main types but by the end of the 50's only Leyland's were in abundance. Like many towns recovering from World War 2, the supply of new vehicles had been slow and rather crude as materials was in short supply and municipals had to often wait until the larger areas were up to speed with their requirements. That said Barrow was one of the first in the country to have the new 8 foot wide buses, which would become standard to this day . The fleet was mainly double deckesr with a few single deckers for the Coast Road service and Barrow -Dalton -Ulverston link. During the last few years in producing paintings of Barrow s buses I have researched quite allot on Barrows transport system . Another interesting aspect was the use of colours on the destination blinds as many folk could not read and the colours helped identify the route . These remained on the buses until the 1960's. Barrow also introduced the rotating advertisement block fitted to the front of the lower saloon so it would advertise local business on a loop , dropping each page every minute- quite entertaining on a wet day, and perhaps the first on board video system!!
The Corporation would dress several buses each Christmas with interior Christmas lights. As a child I always made a bee line for these , though I think it would have been a hard task for the conductress in the somewhat subdued lighting.
In 1961 Barrow introduced a fleet of 10 buses within air controlled loading door at the front, making for lots of humour as they pulled into the stop watching elderly passengers walk to the rear to find no door . Two of these vehicles numbers 1 and 5 were picked to be dressed with Christmas decorations over the grill, one having a Christmas Tree the other a large Bell. A scene with one the buses is captured in the image available as a print from LRU. These new buses fascinated me and of an evening I would listen out for the bus starting at the terminus and the squeak of brakes as it turned into South Row, without my parents knowledge I would sneak into their bedroom which faced South Row and stand at the window to watch it go past , whilst they were downstairs watching television.

In 1962 the Corporation had a change in livery, introducing a fresh new look with cream over most of the body broken by Royal Blue skirt and relief under the top windows. The first bus to be selected was Leyland 141, which was a Roose regular. The morning we first saw it was a bright Saturday on our way to town with my Mother and all the inside had been repainted white giving the top deck a bright appearance from its smoke stained and tobacco smells that usually were there. Within a year most of the fleet were in this livery , even the eldest buses used for just specials wore these colours.
Around 1965-6 the corporation experimented with a brighter Blue on some of the buses, but was not a popular choice , one of which was number 4 , as when painted looked fine but as the cream became stained from day to day use the blue did not match so a return to Royal Blue was made.

I will continue with more memories next time.


Have a safe and happy week.

regards,

Wallace