David Slater (Spoddendale)'s photos

Sunday 27 November 1983 - Yelloway coaches parked at Rochdale: Left is one of the 1973 Plaxton Panorama Elite bodied AEC Reliances of the CDK-L batch and right is one of the 1983 Plaxton Paramount bodied Leyland Leopards sporting a FWH-Y registration. The light coloured stone building is the former Kelsall and Kemp Mill acquired by Yelloway and converted into offices - rather more charming when compared with the ‘the black box’ Council Offices building on the left. That building has been demolished and the Council now occupy new premises, Number One Riverside, built where the photographer, coaches and the Yelloway buildings (in front and behind the camera) stand.

August 1973 – This was the view from inside the Yelloway switchboard room looking out to the garage where one of the CDK-L batch of coaches was standing. Note the bay number discs mounted from the roof steelwork.

April 1974 – Yelloway Ford Transit van PDK 695H. The company usually had one van in the fleet which was replaced every so often. The van was used for varied tasks including the collection and delivery of publicity material, collecting vehicle spares and as a general runabout. It was occasionally used by the Traffic Office team going out on loading duties on summer Friday nights and Saturday mornings. If there were a few of us and no spare coach was available, a bench seat from inside the coach station would be lifted into the van to seat about five of us. It was advisable to be last in because, if seated at the front end of the bench you would become crushed by your other colleagues as everyone slid forward when the van braked! (Health and Safety and seat belt laws didn’t have a prominence back then). A less glamorous task was undertaken by the van on summer Monday mornings when it would be loaded with as many of the dustbins as possible which had become full and overflowing with the sweepings and litter from the coaches over the busy weekend. No skip type service was used! I took the van up to Cronkeyshaw Common to take this picture just after it had been repainted in the company’s own paintshop. One of the later Ford Transits had more orange applied along the lower sides.

April 1974 – Yelloway Ford Transit van PDK 695H. The company usually had one van in the fleet which was replaced every so often. The van was used for varied tasks including the collection and delivery of publicity material, collecting vehicle spares and as a general runabout. It was occasionally used by the Traffic Office team going out on loading duties on summer Friday nights and Saturday mornings. If there were a few of us and no spare coach was available, a bench seat from inside the coach station would be lifted into the van to seat about five of us. It was advisable to be last in because, if seated at the front end of the bench you would become crushed by your other colleagues as everyone slid forward when the van braked! (Health and Safety and seat belt laws didn’t have a prominence back then). A less glamorous task was undertaken by the van on summer Monday mornings when it would be loaded with as many of the dustbins as possible which had become full and overflowing with the sweepings and litter from the coaches over the busy weekend. No skip type service was used! I took the van up to Cronkeyshaw Common to take this picture just after it had been repainted in the company’s own paintshop. One of the later Ford Transits had more orange applied along the lower sides.

Oct 1972 – For many years Yelloway owned this AEC tow truck which had been a former Shell Oil articulated tractor unit and was painted in an anonymous plain grey without fleetnames or identification. It was seen here at the door of the ‘top shop’ having pulled in one of the HDK-E or KDK-F Plaxton Panorama bodied AEC Reliances. (The orange filled moulding is the identifier to these two batches although the roof top destination boxes were different. Those on the HDK-E batch were more squared off and were the same as those on the FDK-D batch. I can’t decide which style is carried here. The profile on the KDK-F batch was a more gentle curve from the top corner of the box to the point above the mirror). Alongside the tow truck are the large orange doors of the Bodyshop and, overlooking the interior of the 'top shop', are the windows of the Chart Room. For a number of years the window on the edge of the photograph was where my desk was located.

January 1972 - The Chart Room, where I worked for a number of years, was above the bodyshop and overlooked the workshop area. This picture shows the ‘top shop’ which had been built in the early 1960s with three AEC Reliances over the walk in pits. (These pits were not absolutely parallel to each other to make driving on to them a little easier since the access door was located at the end of the wall on the right). The centre pit is occupied by one of the CDK-C batch of Harrington Cavalier bodied coaches, CDK 856C I think, whilst that on the left is occupied by one of the HDK-E or KDK-F batch of coaches with Plaxton Panorama bodywork. The right hand pit is occupied by a new AEC Reliance chassis from what would become the WDK-K batch of vehicles placed in service in the coming April. Before being taken to the bodybuilders, in this case Plaxton at Scarborough, the mechanics at Weir Street, under the supervision of Eric Shore and Geoff Barlow, would thoroughly check over and prepare the chassis. The older workshop area was at a lower level with the pits at right angles to those in the newer workshop. These pits were used for routine maintenance checks and lighter tasks. Built in the days of shorter coaches some of the longer coaches (the 36 foot/12 metre long models I think) were a very tight fit. Leaving a couple or so feet in front of the coach facing the workbenches, the sliding exterior doors were only inches from the rear end of the coach when closed to keep out the cold winds that blew straight up the garage in winter!

Monday 5 March 1973 – The Yelloway mechanics at Weir Street, under the supervision of Eric Shore and Geoff Barlow, handled almost every aspect of vehicle maintenance and repair to the Yelloway fleet, only the extremely specialised tasks were the exception. The ‘top shop’ had been built in the early 1960s and had three walk in pits – all occupied by AEC Reliances in this picture. Nearest the camera is 7074 DK with Harrington Cavalier bodywork. The centre pit is occupied by a Premier Travel coach with Alexander ‘Y’ type body – which had had a breakdown whilst working the joint North-west to Cambridge and Clacton-on-Sea service. Furthest from the camera is a Plaxton Panorama Elite model. The older workshop (at right angles to this picture and on the right) also had three pits.

Wednesday 10 November 1971 - Yelloway Paint Shop, Rochdale : During the quieter winter months full repaints of coaches would take place in the Paint Shop. In this view Alan Taylor (furthest from the camera) and Arthur Jones are painting one of the FDK-D batch of Plaxton Panorama bodied AEC Reliances (new in 1966). Arthur was a long serving driver and, for a number of years, was the regular daily driver on the North Wales service. He later became an Inspector spending the summer season based in Torquay.

January 1972 – There were few challenges that the Yelloway Bodyshop team, under the supervision of Cyril Howarth, couldn’t handle. During the quieter winter months this team was supplemented by a small number of drivers who helped out. In this view Arthur Chadwick, Frank Lawton and Mike Reynolds are setting about NDK 165G after the coach had been involved in an accident. Frank and Arthur were long serving drivers, certainly of ‘Leading Driver’ status if not actually ‘Senior Leading Driver’ status.

Summer 1969 - The Yelloway Travel Bureau and Booking Office in Rochdale were former cottages located on Weir Street and was always adorned with posters from holiday resorts together with bespoke information paper posters hand painted by a local signwriting company and pasted up on the panels. The panel between the door and first window carried times and fare information for the Fylde Coast Services. The large map of Britain was painted on hard board and nailed to a wooden frame (I seem to recall the map had recently been replaced after the previous map had deteriorated having been in position for a number of years). The garage frontage can be seen beyond the parked coaches. Today this site is occupied by the 'Number One Riverside' complex of Rochdale Borough Council. The River Roch is on the right out of shot.

Tuesday 26 October 1971 – A picture taken at the counter in the Yelloway Travel Bureau and Booking Office at Weir Street, Rochdale. Behind the counter are, right, Irene Noble (talking with an unknown member of the public) and, left, Amelia McGee who is issuing a ticket for Mary Davenport, an employee in the General Office. The office had been refurbished and updated a few years earlier. The wall in the background used to have three long rows of 'cup hooks' to hold timetable books supplied by all the major bus companies throughout Britain - each would have a string looped through the top left corner to hang the book. During my schooldays I would envy the sight of them and from time to time would ask for the out of date issues to learn about these far flung companies I was otherwise unaware of.

January 1972 – This was a posed shot which I took in the Chart Room and features (from left to right) Vincent Reeves, Robert Wilkinson, Alan Kershaw (standing) and Eddie Nuttall. It is vaguely possible that all the men could have really been on the phones on this side of the room on a busy summer day but not in the month of January! (…and also, without any disrespect, Eddie was very rarely seen on this side of the office as he never tried to venture away from his own desk. He would usually let someone else’s phone ring for an eternity before walking across the room to answer it!). The office had about 14 telephones. Three of those visible on Vincent’s desk, which monitored bookings on the Fylde Coast Services X79/X89, can be seen. He is holding the internal phone (one of just ten on the whole company system). The other black phone is to the main switchboard. The more modern phone (grey in colour) in the bottom right corner is one of the four ex-directory direct lines into the Chart Room for exclusive use by booking agents (this was ‘Rochdale 49311’). Vincent’s fourth phone, out of shot and also linked to the switchboard, was used very little when the switchboard operator was working but outside those hours was plugged into the direct line to the Oldham office. There were also four similar phones on the desk where Alan and Eddie are posed. That direct line was ‘Rochdale 49312’ and used for bookings on the London and Cambridge/Clacton services. The fourth phone on that desk was connected to Blackpool office ‘out of hours’. A payment was made to the ‘GPO’ for those direct links to the offices at Oldham and Blackpool which then saw no individual call charges levied irrespective of frequency of use. The windows in front of these desks overlooked the workshop area, that in the background overlooked the River Roch. The curvature of the room matched the path of the river.

Wednesday 9 February 1972 – The Chart Room team. From left to right: Myself (David Slater then a tender 21 years of age!), Robert Wilkinson, Harold Lord, Eddie Nuttall, Vincent Reeves and Alan Kershaw. After the closure of Yelloway Robert subsequently worked for Ellen Smith (Tours) Limited in their Rochdale Bus Station and Newgate offices. The window in the background is the same as that in the previous photograph.

Summer 1971 or 1972 - Arthur Whelhan dealing with bookings for a number of potential passengers in the Yelloway booking office located on the forecourt of the old Central Railway Station in Manchester. The site later became the G-MEX Centre and now Manchester Central Conference Centre. Yelloway used this location as its Manchester coach station for about three years (1970-1973) after the East Street Coach Station of LMS Coachways was closed for redevelopment. In addition to the booking office there was a waiting room, an inspectors office and general storage rooms built in former war time air raid shelters which bordered Lower Mosley Street (to the right of the picture). One of the windows of the Midland Hotel can be seen through the window behind. This site was supervised by an Inspector (Bill Grundy) and usually two booking clerks (Bill Clarkson and Arthur Whelhan).

Monday 20 April 1981 – This Yelloway board was fixed between the upper windows of Keith Aspinall’s newsagents shop in Milnrow, one of the many small businesses which acted as booking agents for Yelloway services. Keith had once worked at Yelloway although had left before I joined the company. The board includes the words ‘The scenic route to Leicester, Northampton, Dunstable, London’ which dates it to before the early 1960s which saw introduction of the joint services with Premier Travel to Cambridge and Clacton which then covered Leicester and Northampton. The North Wales service is also shown as a Creams service although Yelloway had closed the Creams subsidiary in the early 1970s.

June 1973 – A photograph of my old black and white television set upon which can be seen the closing shot of the Yelloway television commercial. The coach was WDK 646K (new in April 1972). The pictures for the advert were taken on the unopened section of the M62 at its junction with the M621 near Cleckheaton.

June 1973 – A photograph of my old black and white television set upon which can be seen one of the interior shots of the coach used in the Yelloway television commercial. The coach was WDK 646K (new in April 1972). The passengers in the lower right corner are three of the ‘models’ supplied by the advertising agency (Grandma at the front with a younger couple behind her. There was also a girl who was sat alongside the Grandma but out of shot. The rest of the passengers are mainly Yelloway employees although Gerry Henstock’s family were with us that day - his mother/mother-in-law is sat on the second seat on the right - behind Lorraine Blake (nee Probert) who worked in the booking and enquiry office. Gerry’s children were also with us that day. I am in the fifth seat back on the right of the photo - having been moved by the photographer from a more prominent seat near the front!

Spring 1973 – WDK 646K (new in April 1972) was the star of a Yelloway television commercial and the coach was seen here on the westbound carriageway of an unopened section of the M62 at its junction with the M621 near Cleckheaton. The bridge in the background still exists. Derek Cheetham drove the coach and a number of Yelloway staff, myself included, went along as ‘extras’ to supplement the family of four ‘models’ (father, mother, girl and grandma) supplied through the advertising agency. The photographer considers a shot through the coach window of the ‘grandma’ reclined on one the Chapman reclining seats employed on most of the Yelloway coaches at the time. I borrowed Gerard Duffy’s camera to take this set of pictures (actually on slide film).