Hands up if your meeting
place was a bus station, when you were younger?!!
Well, my hand instantly
rises! And at the same time, I start to reminisce:
Newton Abbot Bus Station!!!
This is where the red, mainly
double deckers (but with a few single deckers) ‘Devon General’ buses would gather;
all individually numbered, naturally!
My
bus was the number 12, which went from Newton Abbot to Brixham, via Torquay and
Paignton. (To this day, it still is the
number 12 and so it is the number 12 which sticks in my memory.)
Every school day, I would hop
on a number 12 from where I lived at Aller Park, just outside Newton Abbot and
it would take me on a short journey to the bus station. Every other week, I
would hop on the number 12, on a Saturday afternoon and it would transport me
in the opposite direction to Castle Circus, Torquay, where I would alight and
make an uphill walk to the football ground. I reckon I spent a good part of my
life on a number 12 bus!
(I shamefully have to admit
that I even got thrown off a number 12…just once, when I was misbehaving on the
top deck, throwing around my school beret. I remember it well! I think I
received a school detention and lines from a sneaky prefect who was also
travelling on the bus!! ;-)
( I repeat, it was just the once as I was generally a model pupil!;-)
Back to the bus station!
It was the meeting place where we
‘hung out’ (as they call it nowadays.)
On schooldays, we would all arrive at around 8.30am, from various places in
South Devon and we would quickly disperse to our places of learning. At around
4pm, we would descend like hawks and, for ten or fifteen minutes or so, the bus
station would briefly become a place of chatter, fun and laughter as we said our
goodbyes and jumped on to our appropriate buses, homeward
bound.
Newton Abbot Bus Station had
a newsagents stall; an office (from where I would collect my bus pass each term);
a waiting room with a cafe…and the best bit: a machine on a wall where you
could buy toffets, if you had a sixpence on you! The machine would often go wrong and if you were lucky you could end up with a few more packets. On the edge of the bus station stood a very famous cube
shaped clock, which often showed a different time on each face.
I likened the bus station to
the corner shop…a very important part of one’s day; a place to meet and share
so much. Sadly, like the corner shop, this particular piece of pleasure was soon ‘done
away with’ for what we call progress.
Here's a really old photo of Newton Abbot Bus Station,
(which stood on Kingsteignton Road) before the bus station
was modernised. I would reckon this is 1950s.
(which stood on Kingsteignton Road) before the bus station
was modernised. I would reckon this is 1950s.
As for my other half...he lived in Brixham and also travelled many times
on a number 12 from Brixham Bus Station. I hasten to add that we never met
on our travels!
And, as he reminded me, during the summer,in and around Torbay,
we would look out for the open top double deckers
which were white in colour and named after famous seafarers such as:
Sir Francis Drake
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Martin Frobisher
Sir John Hawkins
Sir Humphrey Gilbert
Sir Thomas Howard
Admiral Blake
Earl Howe
Happy Memories!! ;-)
