"Ian McIver" <tibiarex@hotmail.com> writes:

I have found much of interest on "David Bradley Online", having spent my early years beside the 604, on which I travelled to school. I recognise many of the sites, perhaps more readily than those who live there now, as it is close on 35 years since I last visited West Barnes Lane and Raynes Park; thus in my terms of reference they are still as they were when the 604 ran.

By coincidence I was recently sorting through some old postcards and photographs, and came across three that might be of particular interest to site visitors. I did not take them, and I don't know who did. I think I bought them in around 1970 from Len's in Sutton, opposite the Granada, where I played the organ at weekends for a few years. I spent a lot of time on Saturday afternoons in Len's, while the film was on, waiting to play during the intermission, and I bought masses of photos from that legendary emporium. I presume it, or at least Ken himself, has now passed into history.

The photos are really self-explanatory, the oldest being taken sometime in 1950, in I think West Croydon, and shows No 7 on driver-training duties, during a brief foray away from Fulwell between the spate of withdrawals in 1948-9 and its own demise in early 1951. It's not often one sees a photo of a Diddler in Croydon.

The other two shots are at Carshalton depot in 1959, when the B class trolleys had just been displaced by buses. One shot shows a couple waiting to be taken away, the other shows one leaving the depot for the last time, after having been there since 1935 - a poignant moment indeed, as the reality of the replacement programme first made itself felt.

I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I have enjoyed "David Bradley Online".