Buses on Screen: The 60 70 80 Show (BBC magazine show, 1976)

Allan Haynes notes: "BBC series aimed at retired people presented by my old friend Roy Hudd. This film shot in 1976, on the Community Bus at Sharrington, near Holt in Norfolk....a Ford Transit 12-seater in Eastern Counties colours. The trick is - if you want to run an affordable community bus - you don't pay the drivers! All were volunteers from the villages around, including the vicar and the school teacher."
Allan adds: " the Sharrington Community Bus was a Ford Transit/Deansgate B12F, fleet number MB998. They seem to have been issuing fleet numbers backwards from 1000, a bit like Maidstone and District before the war.
Originally registered HEX683N in November 1975 but subsequently changed to KCL416N as the number had been duplicated. This was reported in 'Buses' Magazine for July 1976, so was this thing going around for six months with the wrong number on it?"
When the bus was 'demobbed' from Norfolk County Council service, 'Buses' reported it in 1978 as nearly worn out, having done 80,000 miles. Allan observes "I think Eastern Counties may have been exaggerating a bit at the expense of the Council! The Community Bus still survives today but as a Dial-a-Ride. Norfolk County Council is now a PSV operator in its own right so does not need the assistance of Eastern Counties (now First Bus) to provide a vehicle. The whole notion of using volunteer drivers from the community itself has been lost"

Buses on Screen > Television > Television 0 > The 60 70 80 Show (BBC magazine show, 1976)