The Golden Age of Coach Travel - (BBC Timeshift Documentary Series 10 Episode 6)
Vložit
- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- Documentary which takes a glorious journey back to the 1950s, when the coach was king. From its early origins in the charabanc, the coach had always been the people's form of transport. Cheaper and more flexible than the train, it allowed those who had travelled little further than their own villages and towns a first heady taste of exploration and freedom. It was a safe capsule on wheels from which to venture out into a wider world.
The distinctive livery of the different coach companies was part of a now lost world, when whole communities crammed into coach after coach en route to pleasure spots like Blackpool, Margate and Torquay. With singsongs, toilet stops and the obligatory pub halt, it didn't matter how long it took to get there because the journey was all part of the adventure.
At 20:20 the man in the middle looking at the camera is my father. He would have been in his early 20s. He was in London attending the AOG bible college in Hamstead.
I WATCHED THIS A FEW YEARS AGO SO SAD TO HEAR CYRIL KENZIE HAS PASSED RIP MY FRIEND ♥️♥️♥️🚍🚍🚍🚍🚍🚍🚍BARBARA FLINN THE WALLACE TOUR GUIDE SEEMS LOVELY BUT THERE IS A GREAT SADNESS IN HER VOICE ITS AS THOUGH SHE MISSES THOSE WONDERFUL DAYSO MUCH I WAS BORN IN 1968 SO NEVER EXPERIENCED THOSE GOLDEN YEARS THOUGH IVE BEEN ROUND THE WORLD BUT FROM WHAT IVE SEEN OF THE PEOPLE AND THE JOY OF THOSE TIMES ID TRADE IT ALL IN SO AS I COULD HAVE BEEN THERE WITH THEM 🚍♥️😁😢
I’m 59 & probably haven’t been on a coach since school & have had driving licence since 1984 but last week I noticed a coach trip company’s adverts at their high street shop window & the thought of going on a day out to somewhere nice for just £ 38 without needing to pay attention to driving seemed like a really great idea . Coaches should be the next big thing 😁
Anytime I feel a bit down I watch this documentary what a wonderful time 50s/60s coach travel must have been I traveled with the family on mystery tours in summer here in Ireland in the 70s most coaches were from the late 50s pure nostalgia 😍
Great to watch,lovely to see Cyril Kenzie and hear his stories,met the man many times during my time in the industry wether he was collecting a new coach or at a show, tremendous gentlemen.
Rest in peace Cyril,you were lovely.
A very interesting film about part of Britain's social history with some great stories! As an adopted Cheltonian I'm amazed at the lack of footage posted on YT about the Black & White Coach Station, which was once the second busiest to Victoria.
I once saw Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies at Victoria Coach Station in 1963 at the time of the Profumo scandal
As someone who doesn't drive, I've ridden a few coaches in my time, the longest was 16 hours from Cheltenham to Göttingen in Germany in about 1990. There was a Cheltenham & District bus driver who used to chat, who would tell all kinds of stories about driving coaches on the continent in the 1960s, he recalled a memorable trip from Cheltenham to Dubrovnik in 1964, that must have been fantastic.
Lovely story. I grew up in cheltenham in the 70’s. Took a few coach trips with my school!
Orange Luxury Coaches in Brixton was our local one.
Many happy days as a boy going on holiday by coach, great fun, i miss those days
Thanks so much for posting this. Much enjoyed.
An England long gone now.
"First one to see Blackpool Tower wins a Mars Bar!" My favourite coaches were the ones with the large "fin" on the roof at the back of the bus.
Very interesting and beautiful Busses also !!!! Greetings from Cologne / Germany
A real walk down memory lane.
Once upon a time there were far more chasdis and bodywork manufacture's,much more variety than we get now.
Modern life is such a rush, the journey was part of yhe experience and enjoyment years ago.
Brother in law always crisses the channel in the tunnel,far quicker he says, id rather sit at the back of the ferry in the sun/breeze/fresh air with a nice cold pint.
Very interesting video and enjoyed every minute of it
magic memories once more of golden days, of community spirt and simple fun.
Superb film.
Nice episode this one, thanks for posting.
Back in 1972 the National Bus Company decided that all its buses would be horrid shades of green or a pinkish red and the coaches would be white. Thus, Royal Blue coaches were now plain white and I can remember seeing a Southdown bus- the company had been sold by BET to National Bus in that horrid gob-green livery- others commented on it as it pulled up in Commercial Road, Portsmouth. As I kid, I lived in Southsea and Southdown as mentioned, was a local operator and its buses were so well turned out. However, as the resort was a key destination for visitors, I would go to the coach parks and look at all the coaches parked up- and even London Transport double deckers that would be present. Groups of chatty Northern ladies and singing Welsh Women were commonplace along the sea front. I was only thinking, today as I travelled behind some Stagecoach double decker, that it was a roving eyesore.
I have met Colin Billington and joined the Thames Valley and Great Western Omnibus Trust
very, very good.
Beautiful 😍
I have done some of that Baddeley bros Holmfirth
A gentler, more caring, world. I think I'd have been happier living in the 50s. The UK is such a horrible place now.
É uma pena não ter opção de legenda. 😢
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we somehow managed to slow down and begin again to enjoy life, the ride if you will. I recall during my corporate life everyone always being in a hurry and for the life of me, once "there" I always wondered what the hurry was because "there" was always a crashing bore of substance lacking nonsense. I was always laughing my ass off when catching a connecting flight in Chicago as all were running, running...running in order to catch the final leg home. I'd just walk and take my time and whenever a flight was missed, it was the perfect opportunity to hit the bar, get half in the bag and often laid. Eventually, I made it to where ever perhaps only a few hours later and much, much happier than the bozos running not knowing what they might be missing.
R I P Cyril Kenzie a proper coachman
That picture he refers to appearing about 20 minutes in, taken in the mid 1930s, where men all are wearing suits, ties, and hats while the women in nice dresses and furs, is interesting to me for a number of reasons.
First, as he mentions everyone is dressed very nicely, including the children who have their suits and little hats also. To me this just highlights in a single average everyday scene the quality of people, both men women and children, of these times. Remember in just 3 or 4 years many of these people would be fighting the Luftwaffe in the skies over London, Hitler was already beging to attract worldwide attention and distant worry.
Take a picture of even the first class waiting area at the average airport today and the impression is radically different. With people dressed in everything from suits and ties to appearing as if they just got off work at the town dump, with more trending towards that.
The quality of the average person is just far worse today. I wonder what would have happened if WW2 had occured today, with everything else being the same as then like in technology. I wonder if the nations youth would have rushed to fight the evil, especially when it became clear it was wholesale slaughter. And the people who couldn't directly fight, would they have gladly worked 18 and even greater, hour days? All for less If everything, pay, food, fuel etc..even agreeing not to strike. I hate to say it but I see nothing like that from thee people today, especially the youth. Not all mind you but a majority I believe. Not only that I don't think they had the mental toughness to endure without shattering.
So very very sad I think
Your sentiments understood, but societal norms were so different ninety years ago that straight comparisons with today cannot be made. True that people have become more selfish with increasing self-sufficiency, wealth and mobility etc, but with better general education has come more awareness, challenging double standards and unkindness to others. That doesn't make them 'far worse'. What was 'dressing very nicely' in the 1930s has its equivalents in the 2020s - it's just that they are quite different! And as today, some who appear nicely-dressed, polite and upstanding were getting up to (and in those days, more likely to get away with) some very bad things behind closed doors.
As for going to war again, God forbid that Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 leads to WW3, but if we Brits were ever to find ourselves directly threatened I wouldn't under-estimate the resolve of our 'youths' to defend our country. Besides, we now have the benefit of history lessons learnt from the run-up to WW1 and WW2. As for having 'the mental toughness to endure without shattering', today's armed forces' training and pastoral care are way ahead of ninety years ago. Remember that hundreds of thousands who returned from WW1 and WW2 were left shattered and were never the same again... but in those days you suffered in silence or stayed in denial (let alone sought any professional help) for fear of looking like a weak, wailing old woman.
That's not a wig eh kids @ 35:05 lol
Where did it all go wrong, why are people today giving themselves heart attacks dashing here and there just to get somewhere they really don't want to be 2.5 seconds faster, so stupid.
Does anyone know the music at 48:08 - 48:15?
Thanks. RMS Sphinx
For anyone interested, the music used is Terry Devine-King - Red September
John 3:16-21 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Amen! .happy Christmas ⛄☃️❄️❄️ 2022 brother,sister.
coaches vs trains - no contest, trains are disgusting these days
+Bigbearbeau Motion sickness is less common on trains, which is why I take trains over coaches any day. I could easily say the same thing about coaches, both have gum under their seats, both are absolutely filthy.
Just like taking coaches in America today! Except, replace the housewives by heroin addicts, and working fathers by just-released convicts. Oh, but there's free Wi-Fi, so you know, swings and ladders!
@Big Bill O'Reilly oh, Little Billy. You mad? 😂
No asylum seekers
Not a snow balls chance in hell that I would climb onto one of those dreadful busses.
One of the most depressing endings I've ever seen. Bugger off.
Godawfully boring..oh well.
You were not forced to watch it.
& neither had I been forced to merely fuckingly browse it 💡💡💡