David Christie – författare

In 1973 David Christie moved house from Essex to Scotland, but it wasn’t till 1974 that he discovered the joys of sailing on Calmac’s ships. An initial sail on King George V at Oban in her last season was a great introduction but mostly, over the next three years, I focussed on Queen Mary on the Clyde, now safely back in Glasgow at the Science Centre. Most of the Clyde piers are covered, with emphasis on Rothesay. Ferries also feature with old and new on the Rothesay and Dunoon runs and the smaller boats at Largs. The west coast features with Oban as the main terminal, then Mallaig, before a session on the pre-bridge Skye ferries. A single visit to Ullapool finishes this journey back to the seventies.

From author David Christie’s home town in Essex, the Green Line route 721 (by RCL) was the usual way of getting to London – into Aldgate, one of his haunts as a young spotter in the ‘50s. From there a walk along to Bank, Aldwych, Trafalgar Square then Whitehall to Parliament Square, returning via the Embankment, invariably followed. This route was generally repeated when, in 1967, he started photographing LT buses. The author was able to capture the last of the RTLs in service, and on later trips to concentrate on the Routemasters. Also featured is the Vintage Route 100, using a 1930-built ST, which started in 1972.With a stunning array of superb photographs, this is a wonderfully evocative and nostalgic look back on an iconic period in London’s transport history.

Bradford had the distinction of running its trolleybus system for over sixty years, being, along with Leeds, the first to operate in Britain. Both systems started in 1911 and Bradford went on to become the last trolleybus operator in Britain, the system closing in 1972.This book is a collection of photographs recorded from 1969 to 1972. For system complexity, and scenically, Bradford was ideally suited to trolleybus operation with the long gradients on its routes out of the city centre. The fleet numbered some 100 vehicles in 1969, mostly rebodied wartime chassis - however, there were also three classes retaining their original bodies, which have been recorded within. Some twenty or so have been saved for preservation, mostly at the Sandtoft Museum near Doncaster.