Just The Ticket!
Wendy Turner talks to the sisters who created a quirky tearoom from a converted bus.
AFEW years ago, sisters Marilyn Ross and Shirley Mount shared a dream to set up a vintagestyle tea business on the Isle of Wight.
They began their search for a suitable location and finally settled on Holliers Park near Sandown in the pretty Arreton Valley.
Holliers offered a wide range of local produce and arts and crafts – but no tea or coffee break for weary shoppers. Holliers’s owner was keen and asked if a double-decker bus would fit the bill!
Within a week the perfect “teashop” was found, a Leyland Olympian doubledecker. It had been languishing in a scrap yard in Scotland, a sad end for its many years of public service. But rescue was at hand . . .
“Once we’d brought the bus to the Isle of Wight,” Marilyn explains, “Shirley and I, with our hard-working partners, set to stripping out its previous life.
“We turned the lower deck into a kitchen, complete with worktops, grills, microwave and fridges. We needed electrical and water services for washing up and the tea urn, with an additional filter for drinking water. But in pride of place is the Italian retro coffee machine supplied by a local company, who also trained us to make speciality Italian coffees.”
The seats on the upper deck of the bus were turned to face each other, producing sets of four round little tables. Marilyn and Shirley added bunting and decorations for the perfect retro look.
“As the conversion work took shape,” Shirley adds, “we saw that hot food and drinks could not be carried safely up and down the stairs.
“My husband, Nick, came to the rescue with a design for a dumb waiter put together from scratch by our friend Kevin, a local carpenter, which solved the problem nicely.”
But that’s not all. The sisters decided to celebrate the vintage feel of the bus and turn a trip for tea into a step back in time.
“Shirley and I were born in the 1950s,” Marilyn says. “As teenagers we grew up in the ‘Swinging Sixties’, so the style and decor reflect our special memories of those times.”
Visitors can now enjoy high tea while taking in the vast display of memorabilia around the bus.
Posters evoke even more distant memories with advertisements for the Women’s Land Army, Oxo, VW camper vans and Fry’s milk chocolate.
“I’m a bit of a magpie,” Marilyn confesses. “If a piece of Fifties or Sixties memorabilia or pretty china catches my eye, I can’t resist buying it! Most comes from car boot sales, auctions and charity shops.”
When the whole venture was complete they dubbed it the “Victory Bus”, an apt name for overcoming their difficulties one by one on the road to teatime success.
The bus’s 400-track sound system helps to set the nostalgic atmosphere. Marilyn’s partner, Brian, is the man behind the playlist.
“I spent my teenage years listening to pirate radio on a big old valve radio,” he explains, “so it was very natural that not only should the music reflect that era, but it should also include some jingles from the pirate stations like Caroline and Luxembourg, which bring happy memories flooding back.”
Brian’s picks include a wide variety of music from Manfred Mann’s “Mighty Quinn” to Tom Jones’s “Delilah”. Even Lonnie
Donegan gets a spot with “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight?)”!
In keeping with the retro theme, Marilyn and Shirley serve tea in vintage china, and there are no teabags here – tea has to be made from real tea leaves. The sisters also make all the cakes from traditional recipes.
Marilyn and Shirley serve tea themselves, looking the part in their Fifties-style dresses. On fine days visitors can take tea at one of the elegant tables and chairs on the covered grassed area outside.
“We usually offer a choice of nine cakes,” Marilyn says, “but we like to make some specials, too. Our chocolate Guinness cake went down well, as did our plum crumble cake, which we serve hot with clotted cream.
“And our Gallybagger special cheese scones are always popular, made with Gallybagger cheese from a local dairy.
“Rhubarb scones are another favourite, served with home-made rhubarb jam, thanks to some of our lovely customers who bring along armfuls of rhubarb from their gardens.
“The tea bus is hard work, but it is all great fun!” n