London Trolleybuses and Red Buses 1959-62: Personal Memories of an Age of Change

Description

The author came to London from Burnley in 1949 as a nine-year old having developed an interest in transport at a very early age; he remained here, mainly in Wandsworth, until 1994. In his first two books, he described his trainspotting travels around Britain. In this third book, he considers London Transport's road fleet with an emphasis on the Central Area during the conversion of the trolleybus routes during 1959-62. He writes about his local trolleybus routes, also recollecting seeing trams as a schoolboy in Tooting. Not possessing a camera until 1959, he has drawn on later photographs and preserved vehicles to fill earlier gaps and takes the reader on a tour of the Central Area with an emphasis on the trolleybuses but covering other vehicles such as the early days of the iconic Routemasters along with everyday shots of life at that time. Green Country buses do make some appearances and he makes a brief nod to the off-the-peg vehicles acquired after RM production which led such chequered lives in the capital.

Geoff Bannister moved from Burnley to south-west London at the age of nine. He taught in a secondary school, teaching mainly Maths and Computing, for over thirty years, moving to West Somerset in 1994 after taking early retirement. He has had a lifelong interest in transport, this book being his third of reminiscences mainly from the late 1950s, earlier volumes covering railways. Other interests include dog walking, photography, classical music, and computing. He is a Christian and has worked with young people in Baptist churches in both London and Somerset.