No more buses through Tixall or Haywood to Hixon

Tomorrow is rather a sad day as for the first time since H.Nicholls started it's bus service to Stafford in the long ago 1920's there will be no service going to the Haywoods via Tixall as the new Staffs County Coucil sponsored D&G 841 will only go as far as Hydrant Way on the Tixall Road. It then goes up passed the County Show Ground, left down Withens Lane to serve Hopton and down to Sandon and Weston before rejoining the old route at Hixon. The reason for this is Arriva will be solely serving the Haywoods on it's Lichfield 825 through Milford without asking for a subsidy. Fortunately no passengers regularly board the bus at Tixall but not having a bus route from Haywood to Hixon causes a real headache for many villagers as they still have to get to their doctor's surgery and now they don't know what to do as I imagine on a bad day it could almost take a couple of hours for if they really have no choice but to go by bus as they will have to come into Stafford first. It's a bit like one of those stories we see on the news where a bridge gets swept away or damaged and drivers have to drive forty miles to get a bottle of milk from the village shop. Anyway here is a photo taken in happier more predictable times of Derek who along with Geoff Arrowsmith used to do the Haywoods service in Staffordian Travel days with trusty old Leyland Leopard coaches like this one which had ran for Wallace Arnold they had four of them and I didn't need to look out of window as each one sounded quite different.