The Old Bus
Sue Leighfield of Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands remembers:
My late grandfather was a painter, decorator, plumber and hoarder. In the 1920s, he bought two obsolete West Bromwich Corporation single-decker buses. He deposited one in the back garden of his end-terrace house in West Bromwich (which must have delighted the neighbours). The other was installed in the corner of a field at Arley, a picturesque Worcestershire village on the Severn Valley courtesy of his friend Farmer Wells.
The bus was surrounded by tall pine trees. It was on the left-hand side of a cart track, off a B-road in the middle of nowhere. There was no electricity or running water but a cottage further up the cart track was home to a lovely old lady called Miss James who let us collect water from her well. You had to lower a bucket suspended on a chain down into the well and wind it up when full. Miss James had a large garden with fruit and vegetables.
Over the years, bits and pieces of cast-off and makeshift parts were added to the bus including, among other things, a bay window and an Anderson shelter. By the 1950s, when my family were enjoying weekends at the bus, it was a real Heath Robinson holiday shack. The bell pushes remained at intervals along the interior walls and many of the double seats were lined up on both sides for sleeping and relaxing on. Early mornings you would be woken by cows peering through the windows and mooing at you to get out of bed.
I have old home movie footage from before the 1950s of my grandparents, other family members and dogs enjoying fun and games in the field with wild west shooting and archery. My late parents rode from West Bromwich on their tandem to the bus for their honeymoon in October 1942.
These homemade shacks along the
River Severn are often called “plotlands”. Tony Harrold’s book Hill Farm and the story of Bewdley Plotlands is informative. My thanks go to Severn Valley Country Park, memoriesofshropshire.co.uk and Shroppie Mon for their assistance. Some plotlands have stood the test of time and remain to this day although our version in the field of Farmer Wells was removed in the late 1960s.
Holidays at the bus were wonderful after travelling there by motorcycle and sidecar towing a caravan made by Father. He would take us down to the jetty at the riverside in Arley village. A ferryboat crossed the river with all sorts of cargo: people, farm animals and machinery. It was carried across on the current and prevented from meandering downstream because it was linked to a cable which ran from one side of the river to the other. The jetty was next to the Valentia Arms and across the river from the Harbour Inn and Arley Station (this remains one of the stations on the scenic Severn Valley Railway).
A unique pub called the Nautical William, a few miles away on a main road, was all done out like a ship with porthole windows, lots of shiny brass and a revolving entrance door. In the 1950s, children were not allowed to go into pubs, but the Nautical William did not mind, so I would sit there with my Smith’s crisps and blue bag of salt, plus a Vimto, admiring all the brilliant decor. The Nautical William also had a lido catering for the popular outdoor swimming craze of the mid-20th century. Grandpa was great friends with many of the villagers and, each year, he ran a treasure hunt stall at Arley village fete. He provided the prizes which were usually several rolls of wallpaper and a tin of distemper. In those days of austerity, this was a pretty good prize. On the wall in the Valentia Arms was a series of caricature drawings of local folk and one was of my grandpa, so I think he must have been popular.
Walking uphill from the jetty, you reached the church and, further on, a castle. This was a folly constructed in the 1800s. Arley land was in the ownership of a local squire but, by the late 1960s, much of the land was purchased by a wealthy Black Country industrialist. He demolished the castle and built a new family home. Surveying the landscape, his eye was drawn to the dreadful pile of junk in the field of Farmer Wells and the order went out to get rid of it. Grandpa was long departed, so my father had to deal with the problem. He contacted the fire brigade in Kidderminster with a cunning plan. They used the bus for firefighting practice until it was totally burned out. The old bus was no more.
I return occasionally to gaze at the spot. Nothing much has changed although the cottage of Miss James is significantly improved. The pine trees are still there and so are all the memories.