I knew Johnny Bird a long time as he was once a driver with Midland Red at Stafford. I remember when I was about fifteen riding on the platform changing the semi-automatic gears on a BMMO S17 for him as we headed out through Sutton Coldfield towards Brownhills and Cannock on the 104 Service which Stafford Garage did. When Harper Brothers became Midland Red Johnny moved to Heath Heyes and the later garage at Delta Way stayed till he retired through ill-health. Shortly after Deregulation he organised a Sunday day-trip to Ramsgate where as you might expect I headed with camera to the large East Kent garage called Thanet. The Midland Red coach unit at Shrewsbury was already in trouble through mismanagement and now closed it's fleet transferred to Cannock which meant we could use Hotspur liveried Plaxton 3500 bodied Tiger 1509 for our trip. Despite the murky weather on the coast it was great Autumn day out and we even saw a Sinclair C5 looking like something from a cartoon coming down the street. It was a long day though as there was an accident on the M20 which meant we were stuck for well over a hour.
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