The the green Eastern Counties bus garage opened in 1935. Edna Dalton remembered it being built by labourers who lodged at the Red Hart pub, looked after by Mrs. Fiske.
The garage was home to many single and double-decker buses. Motor Omnibuses ran frequently from Three Holes to Welney to pick up passengers before travelling to Upwell and Wisbech and back to the depot.
For the 1936 Jubilee celebrations, the buses were moved outside and a stage was erected for a concert.
During the Second World War, there was a separate bus for the High, the Grammar and the Convent schools but towards the end of the war when more drivers came back, the general public started to use the school bus.
Audrey Carnson remembered:
On one occasion during the war, I was the last to get off the bus at the High school due to my exalted position in the far corner of the back seat! I was No.109 and this was a small bus! Only recently, John Hartley told an assembled company that no-one dared to take my seat!”
Audrey Carnson
Buses were not used for travel only. Raymond Allen remembers:
My mother could never make pastry. Hannah, Ted Kisby’s mother, moved to Ely on the main bus route. On a Thursday morning, mother would stop the bus at the Chequers, put the ingredients in a basket on the bus. Hannah would stop the bus in Ely and take the basket. She would make the pastry, put it in a bag, then stop the bus outside her house in Ely in the afternoon, for the bus driver to drop it off when it came back in the evening, for mother to use the pastry as she thought fit!”
Raymond Allen
The drivers and conductors who used the garage included:
W Bellamy, E Parker, E Warby, W Quince, W George, A Clingo, W Campbell, A Bell, K Clingo, M Ramm, Miss P Risebrow, Mrs J Moore, Miss B Motram, G Markellie, C Martin, G Warby, W Smith, l Smith, C Styles, N Loveday, Mr Durrant, Mr Sharman, Mr Churchyard and the last man to use the garage, E Cornwell. A Mr T Warby died in the garage.
The bus garage closed in 1985, and was then owned by Mark Hempson, the grandson of Sid Hempson, who used to run the garage.
For some great photos, check out Patrick ‘Wanderbus’ Burnside’s (Lover of all things ‘Eastern Counties’) website, where he describes salvaging and restoring some of these old buses.
