Bus photos just the ticket
An old photo album has revealed details of the district’s early public transport services.
Palmerstonnorth’s history is intertwined with the story of our city’s bus system. Memories of the 1940s to 1960s echo a time when not every family owned a car but the buses could take you anywhere with one cheap ticket.
School, work, church, hospital, to town for a day’s shopping or, on Saturdays, to the movies; the buses wound around suburban streets with a stop on almost every handy corner.
The tradition continues to this day with our region’s extensive range of bus routes in and around the city.
Recently Graeme Liggins, local collector of historical memorabilia and ‘‘fossicker extraordinaire’’, came across a new treasure – a trove of black and white photos of the old Palmerston North and districts bus fleet.
He explained: ‘‘The photos originally belonged to Reginald
(Reg) Crutchley who was the Palmerston
North City Council bus manager in the
1950s and 1960s. His granddaughter inherited them.’’
As it happened, Reg’s grandson-in-law regularly played table tennis with Liggins, and he brought the undated photos to the table tennis club one morning.
This, said Liggins, sparked his interest. He asked if he could borrow them for copying by the city archives.
In one, the bus fleet is lined up in The Square, with a recognisable Grand Hotel in the background but with a turret on its roof. It is thought the turret may have been removed after the major earthquake of 1940, just like the original clock tower on the now-closed central post office building.
Others show bus conductors on the job in their smart uniforms, as well as the bus interiors, destination signs and vehicles out on the roads.
Liggins is a born appreciator of things which get thrown out over time.
His finds include old bottles: Dixons’ soft-drink factory had a popular business in town long ago and their bottles can still be found, especially underneath old houses.
That seemed to be a common old-time way to dispose of them.
Liggins said that even the place he and wife Linda rented as newlyweds years ago was found to have a bunch of old bottles under the house.
Old coins are another fascinating find. In fact, if you are keen and know where and how to look, Liggins said, therewere remnants of our town’s past everywhere.
He enjoyed talking about them and many of his finds had been donated to the city library archives and to Te Manawa.
His favourite things to collect though are photographs – they are not heavy and tell a story you can see.
One of Liggins most unusual discoveries was made in 2016, when he found an English book dated 1788 at the city council’s Albert St recycling depot.
The date was genuine and the volume was a treatise on gavelkind, concerning the customs of land inheritance in Kent. That find was given to a lawyer in Melbourne.
An ambition of Liggins is to see amural installed somewhere featuring the history of the Wellington and Manawatu¯ Railway Company, a vital part of our early developing borough.
Born in Palmerston North on Valentine’s Day, 1951, Liggins is clearly passionate about his hometown and his interest in preserving its history is away of giving back.
It is the same dedication which saw him join others in the 1990s, protesting the removal of heritage trees lining Fitzherbert Avenue to allow for four lanes of traffic.
The protest, organised under the title Avenue Action, attracted lots of publicity but was ultimately unsuccessful.
The Liggins name has been longestablished here. Joseph Liggins, Graeme Liggins’ great-grandfather, grew up in England in the village of Measham, Leicestershire, not far from the town of Ashby-de-la-zouche.
As fate would have it, Ashby (historically associated with highwayman Dick Turpin) was the birthplace of George Matthew Snelson.
Liggins and Snelson emigrated tonew Zealand as young men and became friends in their new Manawatu¯ community. Snelson was elected Palmerston North’s first mayor.
Here, as time went by, horse-drawn carriages were replaced by early automobiles and demand for motorised public transport grew.
In 1918, the AARD Motor Services of New Zealand was formed.
It was the first national organisation to provide vehicles and drivers for longdistance routes and tourist transport.
By 1927, the popularity of the public bus or omnibus meant that for the first time bus drivers had to have a driver’s licence, pay £1 to the local council and be a person of good character.
Around this time, the railways introduced their own bus services and free school buses came into being.
The rules governing bus transport became stricter in the 1930s, and a permanent arrangement between railways and bus operators got rid of any detrimental competition between the two.
The Bus and Coach Association of New Zealand was formed, representing – as it still does – most of this country’s bus and coach companies, and many vehicle suppliers and manufacturers.
The iconic photos of the 1930s to 1960s are now nostalgic souvenirs, and a reminder of a bus driver’s skill and care over endlessmiles.
Meanwhile, local-history enthusiasts like Graeme Liggins continue to follow their passion for olden-day objects.
For that matter, whatmight just be tucked away in our own garages or those boxes of grandparents’ things, unopened for years?
Memories of the 1940s to 1960s echo a time when not every family owned a car but the buses could take you anywhere, with one cheap ticket.