My grandmother lived on Bridgnorth Rd, Wollaston, Stourbridge till she passed away in 1969, and I have fond memories of visiting her on weekends from my then home in Hereford.

As a 13/14 year old at that time and with a passion for Midland Red buses I would spend most of my time in and around Foster St bus depot. My earliest recollection was seeing the brand new D10's 4943/4 in Foster St garage on the 245/6 Dudley/Wednesbury services, this would be early 1962 possibly? Living in Hereford as a young bus spotter we had Midland Red buses operating from a garage there with an allocation of arounnd 48/50 buses, normally 19/20 double deckers 25/6 single decks and the rest made up of various coaches. The "usual" deckers there were made up of AD2's(up to 1962), D5B's, D7's, 2 LD8's (1966), D9's(the first one being 4898 in oct 1961) and finally the DD11/12 and 13 classes. Single decks were S6 S10 S12 S13 S14 S15 S16 S17 LS18 and a few of the final S21/2/3 models.

Now, back to Stourbridge. It was here I could see buses not operated in Hereford, like open platform D5's the GD6 Guy Arab's, loads of LD8's, loads of D9's and as I said, the two marvellous D10's and on the single deck scene S8's, S9's (hardly if any worked from Hereford depot).

The buses that would use the then three departure points, i.e., Foster St, Vauxhall Rd and the Town Station would be coming in/out from all over the Midland Red area. You could see vehicles operating from the following depots: SE - Stourbridge, HL - Hartshill, DY - Dudley, BE - Bromsgrove, KR - Kidderminster, WR - Worcester, CY - Cradley Heath, BD - Bearwood, WN - Wolverhampton, RH - Redditch and occasionally LW Ludlow on the 190 route.

This, to a young "Red madhead" was an absolute "dream" to see all these different types of BMMO buses in one area, ranging from dirty oily scruffy grimy buses to brand new and sparkly. Each garage seemed to use different kinds of tyres , ranging from Dunlop "Highway" to Michelin "X", its strange how I should notice these things but it did make the bus look different (believe me).

Then there was the "inquisitiveness" of wondering what was the names and places were on the destination blinds. Many a time I've been perched up on the front footstep of a D7 or D9 "winding" the top and bottom blinds on just to see the names, and also listing them in my notebook, which I still have to this day!

The years 1962 through to 1969/70 were to me very "special" and if what I've been rabbiting on about has made any sense to anyone, then I'm glad I could share it. Unfortunately, I didn't possess a camera then to capture these memories so it was very pleasing to come across this website. Keep up the good work, and please feel free to contact, to share these memories which, can never be repeated.

Thanks A.D.D.

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