Maidstone: Local buses for the town's people

This was the view from the window of my digs in Maidstone when I at Art college there. I don't suppose for one moment that Arriva gives the same level of service today but the two former trolleybus routes up the Tonbridge road offered a frequency of every three and every four minutes during the day plus a few more worked by older half-cab PD2 buses or even ancient Daimlers running to and from the depot having been on other routes. These unusual Massey bodied Atlanteans of which Maidstone had twenty looked a bit strange but they were certainly solid and nicely finished and the windows and doors didn't even rattle when the bus was held idling in gear. In this the County Town of Kent not everyone liked the new brighter light blue livery that replaced 'ginger' but not only was it still nicely applied with black lining the advertisements were sign-written adding that feeling of quality and civic pride. Maybe I'm alone but I loved this type of smallish municipal operator that regularly bought Massey Brothers bodies from Wigan including other county towns like Chester, Colchester and Exeter.