Picture of the day

Punch and Judy puppets Punch and Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a rehearsal performance by Professor Paul Wheeler. The traditional Punch and Judy professor is practising his craft in his living room at his home near Bristol, as he is unable to perform to crowds due to the coronavirus pandemic. Picture by Ben Birchall/ PA Wire.

The photograph below was sent in by Graham Martin-bates who says: “Having recently read and enjoyed Derek Simpson’s book, Dundee Buses From Green To Blue, I found something in the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum archive about the time the colour of Dundee buses changed from blue to green.

“A newspaper cutting from the Dundee Evening Telegraph of August 27 1934 reads as follows: ‘A strange sight was seen in the streets of Dundee today. A corporation “blue” bus had turned to green. People could scarcely believe their eyes and continued to stare after this strange spectacle in case it was just a trick of the deflected light, but no – there was no doubt about it, the bus was definitely painted green.

‘The bus chosen for the new colour was on the Johnston Avenue route and it was No 17. Whether it was considered “sweet seventeen” is purely a matter of one’s taste in colour. On inquiry at the transport offices, an Evening Telegraph and Post representative was told that only one bus had been painted green. It was purely an experiment to see how the new colour looked, and how it was received by the travelling public.’

“According to another cutting from the next day’s Courier, the change of colour would help to avoid confusion with other operators’ buses which were also blue.

“The bus in question would have been TS 7524, a Leyland Lion which was new in 1928.

“The attached photograph shows another bus in green livery on the Johnston Avenue route. It is BTS 496, which was a Daimler CVD6, new in 1950.”

“Mention was made in the column of the Patent slip in the piece about the paddle steamer Bonnie Dundee,” says Jim Howie of Broughty Ferry. “Here is a postcard of it, with a ship named Dundee on the stocks and a crowd of workmen under the bow.”