CORITANI CAPERS
Leicester area members have again had a very interesting year with highlights as follows.
February is now the traditional slot for Trevor Follows to give his review of local bus and train happenings. His special feature this time was a review of Metrobuses. In March Ken Johnson treated us to a show 'Trams Then & Now', which interestingly showed much of the new UK tram developments, with preserved systems such as Crich.
In April, I gave a show entitled 'Heartbeat'. Trawling through old family slides of the 1960s, this was various transport photographs and included buses, taken between 1963 and 1968. In May, Mike Greenwood showed off his prowess with new technology and gave us a Powerpoint presentation on Leicester PD3s. Unfortunately, this was beset with technical difficulties and the meeting ended up more as a discussion than a picture show. Also in May, Rob Pike organised a skittles evening at the Horse & Trumpet at Wigston.
The annual artefact show was brought forward to June; amongst the material brought in were reminiscences of school bus travel.
In July, we held our annual Study Tour which this year visited the South Yorkshire Transport Museum at Rotherham. Unfortunately, despite Mike 'plugging' the museum at every meeting for the last five years, events contrived to make numbers lower than expected. An enjoyable time was had by all. Later in the day we visited Barrow Hill Roundhouse Railway Centre near Chesterfield. Ken Williams provided transport with Tiger B165WRN.
August had Paul Roberts give a fascinating talk on Yorkshire systems, whilst September we again welcomed back Chris Aston (on his 167 mile jaunt from Bournemouth) giving us a show on BET/Tilling vehicles. This meeting saw Peter Newland join the exclusive '300 Club'. October saw the return of Mike Fenton, this time giving us 'London and the Bit in the Middle'. This was the last of his 1970s slide shows, the bit in the middle covering a broad range of operators from Chester down to Northampton. This coming year, he will start on his 1980s collection. November saw Peter Cordwell give us a show 'North Midlands Operators, Large & Small', including Burton, Stevenson's, and the Staffordshire area.
In December, Simon Gill opened his slide box back to 1986 and gave us the early years of deregulation. Time has gone quickly and it was interesting to see both Leicester City and Midland Fox vehicles, amongst others, on short lived routes.
And so to our January 2009 meeting, which is by tradition our 'Annual Quiz and Photograph Competitions'. Mike Greenwood, Dennis Hemsley and Michael Webster all tied on 35 points (out of 50) on the A-Z Mastermind quiz. There was a tremendous and varied entry for both the print and slide competitions, and thanks go here to John Bowden for keeping the scores. The print competition was won by Dennis Hemsley for his shot of a Southern Vectis Lodekka, while the slide competition was won by Paul Roberts with a super shot of a Great Orme tram running alongside a Llandudno Foden. Within the convivial atmosphere, it should be noted that there was a shortage of Cadbury Double-Deckers in Leicester that morning, as this was the prize mode for all the various winners!!
Brian Dicks
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