Every Easter WA arrived like that first Cookoo of Spring

It's some time since I last heard the distant call of the Cookoo and Spring is colder and more empty now it's arrival is no longer greeted with that first Wallace Arnold tour trundling through my town. When the new owner's of both did away with WA in favour of Shearings more modern corporate image they denied us of a big chunk of history. After-all with so much changed had you returned in the 90's which other once familiar big coaching name could you have still seen wherever you went in the UK from the more stable pre NBC-PTA Sixties. With about 250 buses and coaches Wallace Arnold I feel was Britain's largest Independent after West Riding, Lancashire United and Barton, operating in Yorkshire but also with depots in London and Devon etc