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You may be wondering why I have signed myself as 'Wanderbus'?
Well... this was the nick-name I acquired from the drivers and conductors when I was in my early teens and used to hang out in Great Yarmouth's Wellington Road bus station in the mid to late 1970s!
I used to eagerly purchase the best travel bargain of the decade, very often on the first departure of the day!
This incredible bargain was a 75p
Eastern
Counties 'Wanderbus' ticket, which
offered me unlimited travel on all Eastern Counties stage carriage bus services
operating over some 9000 square miles of East Anglian
countryside!
In the summer of 1975, the Company ran a competition to find who could travel the furthest distance on a 'Wanderbus' ticket.
Naturally, I decided to enter this competition and after much consultation of the Company's time table booklets, I managed to work out a route starting and ending in Great Yarmouth, which took me by way of Acle, Norwich, East Dereham, Swaffham, King's Lynn, Wisbech, Peterborough and Oundle to the Eastern Counties' farthest flung destination - Kettering!
The return journey was made by returning to Peterborough and then back to Wisbech and King's Lynn and thence to Fakenham, Holt, Cromer, Aylsham and Norwich, where, after a very long and interesting day, I boarded my final bus to take me home to Yarmouth by way of Wroxham, Ludham, Potter Heigham and Martham.
Upon completion of this mammoth journey, I submitted my entry to the Company and waited in eager anticipation!
About a month later, I learnt I had won the competition with a distance travelled just short of 300 miles and received an appropriate certificate signed by the then Traffic Manager of the Company, Mr John Madgett!
(Picture: Preserved former Eastern Counties NBC liveried Bristol FS5G Lodekka LFS 125 (GNG 125C) dating from 1965, proudly sporting an advert for 'Wanderbus' tickets)