Schhol bus taken in Brookland

[Phil Cattermole]

Dear all

 

Further to recent correspondence about services around Brenzett, and Brookland, here's a school bus that I captured at Brookland, resting between duties.  I remember there were a few like this around at the time.  I guess they were operated by KCC before the services were operated by other operators?? Bedford with Strachan body?

 

Regards

 

Phil

[Brian East]

Hi Phil.

Good shot and yes it is a Bedford VAS with Strachans bodywork and they were operated by the KCC Education Department (KEC) as known at the time as I used to have rides on them to ferry pupils to and from Mote Park Swimming Baths for the swimming lessons back in Maidstone at Vinters Boys School (now as the Valley Park School) which I attended from Sep 1982 - Jan 1984 when I used to live in Bearsted.

Thanks

Brian.

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[n.ki...@btinternet.com]

There were twelve of these, CKL 281-92K, Bedford SB5/Strachan SC B39F, owned by KCC.  As new in 1972 they were in light blue livery, changing to yellow in later years.  They were also initially npsv, being upgraded to psv in the mid-1970s.  I am not sure why that change of status was necessary, unless it was to do with fares being charged.  I don’t recollect that any of the services which they ran were ever licensed in the conventional manner.  They lasted until, I think, the mid-1980s.

    I seem to remember that 281-6 were based on the Marsh for transport to and from Southlands School (now the Marsh Academy) and faint memory tells me that 287-92 performed a similar function on the Grain peninsula for Hundred of Hoo School, though I would not want to be definitive on that.  All parked at various locations convenient for their regular drivers, and I do remember one regularly parked at Brookland.

    Club coverage seems very patchy in News-Sheets of the time, doubtless reflecting poor levels of reporting and awareness, but it is clear that for whatever reason KCC decided to provide their own school buses in these areas – an interesting precursor of KCC operations in more recent years (including Kent Top Travel).

    This was all around the time of the big re-organisation of secondary education arising from

-    the attempt of the 1966-70 Labour Government to convert all secondary education to comprehensive, and from unisex to co-educational.  Once the Tories replaced them in 1970, matters were rather too far advanced for a total reversal of what was already well under way in some areas, and local authorities were left with discretion, which was often influenced by the local political colour.  In Kent, much of which was still blue, most (?all) areas remained selective; some (e.g. Maidstone) went into the “Thameside” scheme with transfer at 13 rather than 11.  Pupils who were not selected for grammar schools still had some element of choice between different secondary schools in their area, especially where sibling history could be shown.  Some secondary schools changed from single-sex to co-educational, others did not.

-    the need to provide additional school places when the school leaving age changed from 15 to 16, resulting in increased school population from the 1973/4 academic year (those who would otherwise have left school at the age of 15 in summer 1973).

-    the revision of local authority boundaries in 1974 (Kent came down to 14 authorities from, I think, 22); so changing patterns of secondary education had to take into account the eventual format of the new authorities and their educational provision, especially where one new authority might be adopting a different policy from contributory neighbouring authority/ies.

-    the infrastructure of some elderly secondary premises being seriously out-of-date.

    I am hazy about specific details, but from my own early professional postings know that in Folkestone and the Marsh (which became Shepway in 1974) there were big changes in school transport.  The large numbers of Marsh children of secondary age who had bussed to and from Folkestone secondary schools (grammar and non-grammar) on numerous 105 reliefs gradually reduced, and new contracts 74 and 75 were introduced from the Marsh for those attending the Harvey Grammar School (for boys) and the Girls’ Grammar School.  East Kent worked those contracts until c1976, when they were lost to Davies of Rye (who ran them with former East Kent Regents for a while).

    I am not sure when Southlands opened (1960s? – see below), but by the mid-1970s pretty well all non-grammar pupils from the Marsh were allocated there.

    There are still some vestiges of this, including the significant quantity of children bussing from Folkestone and its hinterland to Brockhill secondary school at Hythe rather than attending the other non-grammar schools in Folkestone (hence the triple-banking of some journeys on service 19).  This has something to do with the different emphases of curriculum adopted by non-grammar schools; for instance, Brockhill has always been seen as catering more for those from agricultural backgrounds.  And of course there has in recent years been the gradual shift to Academy provision for non-selective pupils over 16, plus the raising of school leaving age to 17 last year (and to 18 soon).

    Another slant on the Marsh situation is the school contract which East Kent used to run from Lydd to Ashford, using a DD until at least 1963, then an SD (see recent History Corner entries in Invicta relating to Lydd outstation).  That type change of 1963 may well relate to the opening of Southlands, which would have meant that non-grammar children from the northern side of the Marsh no longer needed to be bussed to Ashford, leaving just the grammar school pupils.  There is some evidence that this contract may have been in place as early as 1937 (using a TD1!).  It continued until the end of 1976, when it passed to another operator.

    Over and above all of this sits the additional layer of children who attended, and still attend, the faith-based secondary schools, including St. Edmund’s at Dover (with its catchment area extending right down to the Marsh as well as up to Deal) and St. Anselm’s (for girls) at Canterbury.  These impose their own requirements for school buses, including the somewhat remarkable 990 from Greatstone to Dover, which for a while was worked by a Hastings vehicle, taking it more than 40 miles from its home base (it is now worked from Old Romney and integrated with the 100 Wave group).

    Some of this is blurred at the edges, and other readers may be able to sharpen it  I throw it all into the pot in the hope that it may provoke further comment, as nobody otherwise seems to have picked up yet the various points which arise from Phil’s posting, but which are of some importance in registering the relationship between bus services and social backgrounds.

 

Nicholas King