First:: Lowland

There was quite a long period when the First Group confined it's once eye catching 'Barbi' corporate look to brand new vehicles that matched it's specification and at the same time it's many fleets retained their former identity often just modifying their existing layout to incorporate the First Logo or to add a splash of extra colour too. Some of the results were very pleasing and fresh as can be seen here on this Peebles based Leyland National caught hurrying away from Edinburgh Saint Andrew Square Bus Station bound for Penicuik. In Britain we were all to familiar with these integral buses in NBC red or green but National Mk1 buses were not so common north of the border as the canny Scots folk preferred to stick with their more orthodox tried and tested Alexander Y-type combinations particularly the dependable Leyland Leopard. Before the Scottish Bus group like the NBC further south was broken up in 1985, Lowland had been the southern region of the large Eastern Scottish and even though it's fleet was the smallest with just one-hundred vehicles it's operating area extended from just outside the Edinburgh conurbation to Berwick-on-Tweed on the border of England.