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Midland Red or Mackie and Gladstones

  • Thread starter Thread starter teh
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Pmc1947 It's a great photo. Lloyd you certainly know your stuff. I want to thank you for the help and great information you gave us on the tour yesterday. The transport museum at Wythall is lovely and a great place for all the family to visit.
 
When I started at the Driving school at Bearwood a Mr. Bowen was the instructor, one day in an old C1 dual control coach, and allthough being told to listen to the music etc. we were having trouble changing gear with the very worn crash box, he said l will show you how, and after starting off put his left leg up on the dash and changed gear without the clutch at all. After getting my badge and being on the road for a while I had no trouble changing gear without the clutch myself, and after a few hours in a S12 or S13 on Whythalls from Acocks Green your left leg needed a rest. Was Gladys Hayes the one who used to sit knitting on the 144s?.
 
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john 70,yes that was Gladys Hayes. Like I said before I only remeber Steve Pender from the school. When were you at Digbeth?
 
Stitcher said:
john 70,yes that was Gladys Hayes. Like I said before I only remeber Steve Pender from the school. When were you at Digbeth?
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I was there in 1964/5. and again in 72to74, Steve Pender took me a run up Bradford St. in one of the first Nationals when they came out, as you say, he was a nice man, I didnt know he had died untill I saw it on here.
 
I knew Steve when he was at Digbeth, and Gladys - with her knitting - well you could go for miles without picking anyone up on the Malvern or Burton on Trent runs! I did ask her one winter to knit a cosy for the bus, it was so cold!
She lived in a block of flats in Highgate, and I last saw her when I was working at Redditch, late 90s, she would use her retired employee's bus pass and go shopping there. A salt of the earth woman who stood no nonsense from awkward passengers!
 
John 70, our time on the Red must have overlapped a little because my son was born in 72 and I stayed there for 2-3 years after he was born. I then got me Hackney Badge and bought my own cab to finish my working life.
 
Stitcher,
I knew Steve Pender both on the Red and then after he transferred to the PTE. He took me for my motorway assessment when I went on Motorway Express work. This took the form of driving a CM6T out to Spaghetti and up to junction 16 on the M6, and back, travelling at 70mph and making use of the outside lane, neither of which is allowed in a coach these days. When Steve first started at Digbeth he was one of the few new starters to wear a uniform cap at all times. It was some months before we found out he was bald and rather sensitive about it. Later on he took to wearing a hairpiece that suited him really well. Yes, Paddy Pender as he liked to be known was a really likeable character in the job.
 
Motorman Mike, you are dead right about the hairpiece and about him being a nice man. When I look back I realise how different it all is today. On Stage Carriage work anyway. I see drivers with a mobile stuck in their ear, dirty buses and dreadful driving standards.
 
I was doing the 5 18pm 144 to Malvern on a Sunday evening and Gladys was my conducteress, but she turned up an hour late, so we were told to go, and come into service at Worcester, when I got to the M5 jcn. at Rubery I thought I would go down the motorway, be a change in a D9, so I did with Gladys sitting behind me knitting away, I came off the M5 at jcn 6, where its signposted Blackpole, she looked up and thought it said Blackpool, and went beserk, how she thought we could have got to Blackpool in a D9 in half an hour I dont know. she was a good old stick though,
 
John 70, I consider myself lucky to have worked with such people. Also to have been an employee of such an iconic company, although I was not there much more than about six-eight years before we were all moved about.
 
I still keep in touch with Graham Phipps from Digbeth in the 70s if anyone remembers him. There was also a tall thin West Indian, Carlton Greene. All he ever said was "Too much pressure". Then there was Pinto, Trevor Gould and Tony Evans.
 
Stitcher,
Remember em all. Carton Greene originated from Bromsgrove Garage I believe and was on the union committee at Moseley Road (Metro). Clem Pinto, last time I saw him was driving minibus for Solihull Social Services. Trevor Gould, another character, left to drive black cabs. Don' t know what happened to Tony Evans.
Did you ever work with conductress Mary Greenan. She wore star spangled glasses long before Dame Edna Everidge came on the telly and hated Corporation (in boundary) passengers on the way in to Brum. She would make up her waybill at the boundary and go ballistic at you in the bus station if you stopped to pick any up. If some unfortunate should scramble on whilst making a set down she would remind them in no uncertain terms there was a BCT service for them and turf them off. Don't know how she got away with it. Happy Days!
I reckon we could do with a thread just to recall Digbeth days as this one started off for Sutton info, poor old teh must be wondering what he let himself in for.
 
I'm glad to have met them as well, I can sit here and remember faces, names and conversations - Alan Thomas and Cyril Banks, both long-serving coachmen whose tales of life on the road in the fifties enthralled me - 'Puffer' Jones, who told me of his exploits as a steam lorry driver in the thirties - conductors Sidney Durham, who could convince anyone prepared to listen to his theories of 'Why Einstein was wrong', 'why smoking is good for your health' etc - Vic Wilson, who wore his ticket machine low on his thigh for reasons I showed some of the travellers on Peter's bus trip on Saturday - and 'Pongo' Wareing, who never used a cash bag or ticket machine strap, just carried the machine and put the cash in his tunic pockets - Engineering Dock Foreman Norman Keen, who I still keep in touch with, had a photographic memory and could remember every breakdown he'd been on, and jobs he'd done on buses when he started as an apprentice at Digbeth at 15 - people who made the biggest bus company in the country the best one to work for, the 'Friendly Midland Red'.


Where else could a bus driver, on duty, be sitting in charge of an 'olde worlde' half-timbered M&B pub? Only on the Midland Red!
 
Lloyd, do you realise that we knew and worked with some great workmates and those growing up now will never get the enjoyment from work that we got.
 
motorman mike, every time I read a message it brings back more memories,all good ones. Mary Greenan,vic wilson and Pongo. Do you remember Ray Tyler?
 
Stitcher,
I certanly do, we were good mates, I had an A55 van at one time and did a bit of carting things about for him and family when he lived in Stechford. Before setting out his mum insisted we had the biggest "Full English" I've ever seen! We both left the Red to work (very briefly) for an outfit called Connaught Coaches at Chadwick End, but soon retuned to the Red. (I could almst write a book about that - a good title would be "Coaching Daze") Ray transferred to the PTE at Moseley Road and went with the 159 to Liverpool Street when they closed us down. Reget I lost touch with him after that.
Pongo always wore very expensive brown shoes but never paid full wack for them, he used to use a January trip when he was on the old Stratford 150 to dash up Bridge Sreet and buy em in an exclusive gents outfitters while the Sales were on. He was one of the old school and shouted out the main stops, and also one of the last of the coach conductors the Red used to have.
If you remember Vic Clifton, he is still about, now in his eighties. he appears every Thursday at Yardley Wood to pay his tote and have a dinner in the canteen.

Mike
 
When I knew him Ray lived in Chelmsly Wood and he bought us a set of saucepans when we first set up home. I remember all the others you mention apart from Vic Clifton. I know the name but I cant put a face to it. I remember Ray was probably the most inoffensive man I ever knew. Was foreman Steve there in your days?
 
Another great charactor and nice bloke was Reg Harding, who later went to Acocks Green garage with W M T.
 
John 70,I remember Reg very well. He lived on the Coventry Rd, just before the old airport and on the opposite side of the road. My step Brother worked as a driver at Acocks Green for years. He went straight there from the army at the end of ww2. He worked the 31a-32 mainly. His name was BEN SEAL. He is 87 now. He left the buses when they went one man and did his last few years as a postman.
 
Reg Harding, another legend in his own lifetime busman! Known both as "Headlights" Harding and "Leyland" Harding. First for his furious headlight flashing on approaching another Red bus - at night this included destinations and interiors much to the concern of his passengers who thought the lights were about to pack up. Second for his obsession with driving the Leyland LD8's. He was even known to engineer breakdowns of other types to get one as a change bus as well as swopping fleet numbers on the bus sheet to get one - foreman Steve used to turn a blind eye to that one, but engineer Norman Keene went bananas when he found a Leyland due in for attention after the morning peak was now out all day thanks to Reg and it had to be fetched off him. His exploits would certainly fill a book. The Red dispensed with his services after an incident with a motorist and a pedestrian in Acocks Green. Vic Wilson was his guard that day. We got him back on the PTE at Moseley Road and he transferred to Acocks Green, an ambition cos his Dad worked there many years before. Off the Red he got a job at Foster Brothers to drive, you guessed it, an ex Red Leyland (4031) they had as a staff bus. He even worked with Ray and me at Connought Coaches. Eyesight problems brought his days on the buses to a premature end but he still lives at Sheldon and you know when he's in cos his car is a redundant FX4 taxi. Out of interest he had great tales to tell of his days as a cinema projectionist at the Sheldon Cinema and other Cov Road cinemas before he joined the Red. The pic here is of one of Reg's favourites.
 
Hi. Mav. You have some great memories, especially of Reg, thanks for sharing them with us, and two cracking photo,s, the LD8s were a great bus, one of my favourites also, I remember the fan belt snapping on 4028 at Meriden and slapping the side of the cab by my left leg really hard, I nearly jumped out, LOL. I dont think we realised at the time what good days they were on the Red, wish now I had stopped on longer than I did. Take Care. John 70
 
Motorman mike, I seem to remember that Reg had an altercation with a motorist in Acocks Green, then a pedestrian poked his nose in. Reg gave him a mouthful and this guy said he would report it so Reg said "report this as well" and he skimmed the mans hat across the road. Going of thread a little, there were two 'Midland Redders' who lived somewhere near Wythall Church,are you one of them?
 
Hi. Stitcher. You mention Whythall church, This is the lane up to the church where we used to reverse into, not sure but think the conductor who took this photo was Colin Sears.
 
John 70, yes I remember it well. The two Midland Redders who got on or off there used to talk about bus preservation and I wondered If either of them used this forum. I vant remamber their names.
 
Stitcher said:
Motorman mike, I seem to remember that Reg had an altercation with a motorist in Acocks Green, then a pedestrian poked his nose in. Reg gave him a mouthful and this guy said he would report it so Reg said "report this as well" and he skimmed the mans hat across the road. Going of thread a little, there were two 'Midland Redders' who lived somewhere near Wythall Church,are you one of them?
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That's right Stitcher, I was the fat one and the other one was Malcolm Dilloway. We both lived on the grandly named Wythye Heath Mobile Homes Park behind Wythall Church. Many times I took an S14 or S15s 5058 or 5082 on to the Park for a quick cuppa at home during one man days. It was a bit too tight to turn a 36 footer round, I had to get neighbours to move their cars on what became the only time I tried it. Strange now, because where my home was located is now inside the Bus Museum.
Mike
 
Stitcher said:
Motorman mike, I seem to remember that Reg had an altercation with a motorist in Acocks Green, then a pedestrian poked his nose in. Reg gave him a mouthful and this guy said he would report it so Reg said "report this as well" and he skimmed the mans hat across the road. Going of thread a little, there were two 'Midland Redders' who lived somewhere near Wythall Church,are you one of them?
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Right agan Stitcher, except that Reg skimmed the flatat up on top a shop sunblind told the bloke to "mind your own business and fetch that" as well.
The motorist, a woman was about to reverse into a space as Reg was leaving the Green stop in Warwick Road going out. He pulled forward and stopped to allow her back. Not getting it right she pulled forward and tried again but got it wrong again. This time she pulled out and moved so far forward that Reg thought she had given up and leaving and he pulled forward to go. Next thing she stops and on come the reversing lights. Reg anchors up a bit smartish but is now too close for her to reverse whreupon this pedestrian bloke bangs on his bonnet and shouts "you awkward b*****d" you should have let her in" The mistake Reg made was to get out the cab to speak to the bloke because the woman just drove off anyway. We certainly missed Reg after that. My first encounter with him was the first time I was his conductor. It was on the first Stratford one morning and those days Hawleys put a tray of cobs on under the stairs to be dropped off at "The Plough" Monkspath at about 6-30am. Trouble was Reg forgot to stop so they ended up at Stratford, not once but twice, until I gave him a bell to stop on the way back the second time and the cobs arrived at about 11-15 instead. Can you imagine loose cobs on a tray with a sheet of greaseproof paper over being delivered like that today.

Mike
 
Motorman mike. The cobs storey is very funny. I am happier now I know who I am talking to. They were very happy days and although I considered myself to a commercial driver rather than a bus driver, I did enjoy the commaraderie that was always prevalent at Digbeth.
 
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Hi. Stitcher,
Your step brother would have driven this AEC a few times, it spent its life at Acocks Green.
 
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