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| The Website for all former pupils of the Prescot Grammar Schools |
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Back to those heady days of the H14 pictured here outside the Pier Head ready for its tortuous journey to the Hope and Anchor. To young Prescot Grammar Boys, the H14 was the transport of their daily life. I used to catch the H14 unceremoniously in the morning from Whiston Lane, eyes full of tiredness and not the wherewithall to appreciate the trip. Ah... but the return journey was magical... out of school at 4.00pm, sprinting up St.Helens Road up to Rays Cakes Shop with an old penny ready for some 'brokes', two for a penny, three if you were dead lucky and then into the queue into Hope Street. The incoming H14 from Liverpool would disgorge its passengers and then run down to the Cables' football ground and turn around. |
| All hell was
let loose as boys pushed, shoved and lurched onto
the bus, usually with recriminations from
firstly, the conductor but mainly the general
public. The panic increased with the extra input
from the Girls Grammar School. I remember Mr.
Brown, in his first few weeks in 1963 as
Headmaster, having to deal with a complaint from
Crosville as some PGS villain had unscrewed two
lightbulbs from the top deck! I remember sitting
in french with 'Chuck' Berry when the message,
'All boys on the half-past four H14 report to the
hall.' We heard that phrase with alarming
regularity afterwards. If my memory serves me well, the bus type above had a range of different seating plans on the top deck. Firstly, there was the standard two columns each with two seats abreast. Secondly, one column of 'bench'seats for four people with the aisle on the offside of the bus. However, I seem to remember a 'diagonal' seating pattern again in fours across the bus, very strange, but someone at Crosville must have thought it a good idea! The bus would leave Prescot, slide down Prescot Hill, eventually turning up Huyton Lane at the Brookbridge Garage. It's journey would continue past the Huyton and Prescot Golf Club before dropping me off at the Whiston Lane stop. From there, it would take a detour around the Mosscroft estate, rejoining Huyton Lane at the bottom of Longview Road and foolowing it into Huyton Village Centre and Archway Road. From there on it made its way towards Bowring Park, via the Tarbock Road shops and the Stanley Arms to the outer limit of the Grammar Schools' catchment areas. For the Bus-Obsessive try http://www.britishbus.co.uk/crosville.htm for a more detailed history of the Crosville Bus Company! |