I am so jealous, seeing what a fantastic time you all had on your Outer Circle trip! Great photos and what a hoot seeing the top deck full, I would have given (almost) anything to have been there.
I rode the No. 11 so many times when I was a sprog, being taken from Erdington to Moseley I think, to see an opthalmic specialist for treatment of a 'lazy eye'. Either my Mother or Grandmother would take me and, because I also suffered from childhood travel sickness, we had to start early enough so we get off somewhere every so often for me to stop looking green around the gills!
The buses ran so often back then that we didn't have to wait very long for another one to show up. So many of the return trips were in the rush hour and by the time we got on it was often 'standing room only' and with the smokers upstairs there was always a thick fug. Do you remember the pong in the bus on a wet winter evening! Most of the windows would be closed to keep the rain out, the inside of the windows were streaming with condensation which I used to wipe off to see all the lights of the shops outside....Happy days!