A COUPLE of weeks ago reader Bill Leadbeater said that he thought he recalled a fleet of blue buses on the Leigh-Bolton route, and asked if anyone else remembered them.

Oh yes! Mr W.J. Smith, of Hutton Avenue, Boothstown, for instance, tells me that he remembers a small number of Leigh Corporation buses running on that route for a short time immediately after the change-over from trolley buses to diesel/petrol buses.

'I was always interested in buses from about the age of five, and still am at the age of 82,' he writes. 'So having an inquiring mind I asked Fred Wilson, the Chief Inspector for LUT, and he told me it was a "Leigh formality", simply to show that Leigh Corporation had a right to run on that route, although it was only about two miles from the boundary of Leigh/Atherton to the terminus in the centre of Leigh. It was a gesture which didn't last long. Those were Leigh Corporation blue buses, as LUT have always had red, a lot of them with a facsimile of the Lancashire Red Rose on the side.'

Mrs Pat Daniel, of Carrington Drive, Great Lever, also wrote to tell me that her father Robert Swankie, who now lives in Barry, South Wales, was a bus driver here in the 1960s. She rang to tell him about the query, and he confirmed that Leigh buses were blue (they had a fleet of them) and LUT was red.'

Mr David Rushton, of Higher Dunscar, Egerton, lived just off St Helens Road near Hulton playing fields from birth until he married in 1972.

'There were several trolley bus services from Bolton; one to Daubhill Station, reversing I think into Perth Street for the return journey, also to Hulton Lane, utilising the wide junction for driving round to return, and to Four Lane Ends, reversing across the road into a small side street.

'Other services started from Howell Croft South (between where now the Octagon stands, and Great Moor Street) journeyed to Atherton and Leigh on a very busy route.

'Trolley buses were clean, quiet, with fast acceleration. There were "No Smoking" signs downstairs, and "No Spitting" signs upstairs.

'The trolley bus service was gradually replaced by buses on the 79, 80, and 81 routes, and the Bolton/Leigh service finally ended on August 31, 1958, after which the wires were taken down and most of the vehicles destroyed at the depot (between Atherton and Leigh).

'Turning to the Leigh Corporation blue buses, there were indeed a few of these operating alongside the red LUT buses for a few years, from I think the late 1950s until some re-organisation took place.'