This is a photo from The Times Archive which was recently published in the paper paper.It was taken in 1962 in Corfe, Dorset, showing the long distance bus on its way to Penzance in Cornwall. Compared to today it might just as well be the Middle Ages.
The absence of traffic in many of these archive photos is often striking. Even in London – remember the opening shots of Julie Christie racing round Trafalgar Square in a sports car. OK, they had to film early in the morning, but you could not have done that in any later decade
Not long before this picture was taken I had a very happy week in Dorset on an A level geography field trip – I wonder if the bus which carried us down from the North looked like this one – I suppose it must have done. The driver did a superb job of negotiating some very narrow, bendy & occasionally steep country lanes.
One day, when we were split up in pairs for individual adventures, my best friend & I daringly went in to a pub for lunch – a half pint of cider & a cheese sandwich. On our last evening the whole group of us tried to recreate the famous prank when some society bright young things impersonated a group of Arabs – we were very let down when the good townsfolk of Swanage seemed to see straight through our disguise.
Last week’s Womans Hour drama was Villette which I was surprised to find myself enjoying – even as a child I could not abide Wuthering Heights (nor Jane Eyre, nor Rebecca). One surprising test of Lucy Snowe’s growing confidence after she went off to find new life in London was the fact that “I have braved the perils of crossings” – the horse-drawn traffic was alarming & dangerous.
By 1908 the British Medical Journal was bemoaning the dangers of the motor car. But oddly, in the 1950s & 1960s London’s roads were remarkably clear of traffic, at least outside the rush hour. At weekends & evenings, especially in August, most of central London, especially the City & those parts of Westminster around Parliament & Whitehall, were quiet. Even so, my intention of using my bike to save on bus fares did not survive my first term of trying to negotiate the Elephant & Castle.
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