Old Shanklin then and now

As a Christmas present in 1962, when I was 12 years old, I was given a book entitled ‘A Swift Picture Book – Buses, Coaches and Lorries’ (‘Swift’ was a weekly childrens magazine).

Having read the book so many times over the ensuing years many of the photographs were almost etched in my mind. One in particular was of an Eastern Coachworks bodied Bristol Lodekka of Southern Vectis taken in Old Shanklin, Isle of Wight. On my first proper visit to the island in July 2017 I took a photograph of an Alexander Dennis Enviro400 bus in close to the same spot as the Lodekka. I have reproduced the two photographs here.

The book, ‘A Swift Picture Book – Buses, Coaches and Lorries’, was published by Longacre Press in 1960 and was compiled by the well known transport writer Charles S Dunbar.