'Stubbers'

Mark Keefe sent me a bunch of pictures this morning of the 'Classic Commercial Vehicle Rally' at the weekend. There were none there of the  crowds and displays at Kirkby Stephen East station but several of the queues waiting outside the 'Crog' for buses. So my guess is that with the perfect weather the turnout was very good. Maybe there will be some pictures up on the KSE web site in the next few days.

One of the pictures that Mark sent me was this one of Will Hamer's open top bus. The occasion is Thursday evening when they always make a circuit of the routes to make sure there are no unexpected problems for the weekend. They are somewhere on the road to Soulby. Weather looks great eh? Must have been a nice evening trip out.

The thing that caught my eye in this picture were the chrome cigarette 'stubbers' on the backs of the seats. Remember those days? A bit of pure nostalgia there! When I started to smoke in the 1960's I guess half the seats on public transport were 'smokers', you could even light up a pipe full of St. Bruno in a compartment on a train and no one would say a word as those dense clouds of blue smoke filled the air.

Makes me laugh to think about it!