Bakers Arms Junction, Leyton

Click on picture [168] for an enlarged version

From: "Raymond Wilkinson" <ray@trenance25.freeserve.co.uk>

I have enjoyed browsing through your website very much. Your excellent photos brought back many memories of bus spotting in the 1950s. I lived at Wanstead until 1969 [when I was 28] so my nearest trolleybuses were the N1's on the 661 at Leytonstone [which we used to visit relations in Walthamstow] and the 581, 555, and 557 routes which took us into the City from Bakers Arms, Leyton. I also travelled occasionally on the 623 from Waterworks corner down Forest Road. We also used to go to Ilford on the bus where, of course, the SA's were in evidence.

I first became initiated into the ranks of bus spotters in 1955 so it was only then that I really came to know the details of all these different classes and I then travelled further afield over the whole London Transport area. Your pictures of the 654 were particularly of interest because I remember a friend and I cycling the whole length of the route, and visiting the depot, and managing to 'cop' the whole class. We also visited the Woolwich and Bexleyheath area and saw most of those: in fact a trip to Woolwich was a rare treat from home when I was younger with a bus ride on one of the utility Guys on the 101 to North Woolwich, followed by a ferry ride on one of those splendid paddle steamers and then a glimpse of the trams on the other side [in fact I did ride on a tram from Woolwich to Greenwich on one occasion].

From: "Stuart Perry" <stuart.perry4@ntlworld.com>

I have just spent a fascinating hour browsing through your site which brought back a lot of happy childhood memories. I was raised in the Holloway area and spent a lot of time in the school holidays hanging around the Nags Head junction enjoying all the action. Except perhaps for early Sunday mornings there was always a trolleybus in sight. At that age the main attraction with my school friends was to bag as many numbers as possible! It was only later that I began to appreciate the excellence of the vehicles and the routes they served.

Thanks for a big helping of nostalgia.

From: "Dave Bosher" <db015f4431@blueyonder.co.uk>

I have just discovered your fascinating website on the London trolleybuses and should like to congratulate you on all the hard work you must have put in which has brought back many happy memories for me, especially the photos of the trolleys in north and east London. I was only a small boy in the 1950s but, even so, have vivid memories of begging my grandmother to take me for rides on "the ones with the poles" but only if I behaved myself!

We lived in St. Paul's Road in Canonbury and an afternoon treat was to walk up to Highbury Corner and go on the 611 to Highgate Village and back. The criss-crossing of the overhead wires at the Holloway Road/Seven Sisters Road junction, known as the Nag's Head, formed a huge kaleidoscopic spider's web in the air.

The photos of the 611 route on Highgate Hill and at the village terminus - and in full colour, too - are wonderfully nostalgic and also brought back memories of my lovely gran who, like the trolleys, is sadly no longer with us.

And at the other end of St. Paul's Road were the 677's coming out of Essex Road and the 641's crossing over at Ball's Pond Road on their way north and we often used to go on the 641 on a Sunday afternoon to my gran's sister who lived in Harringay, not far from where I live now in Hornsey. Indeed, the 641 went right past where I was born at Newington Green.

My own parents moved to Loughton in Essex when I was still a child, where they still live, so I was also very interested in the splendid photo at the Baker's Arms in Leyton, as I remember this location being a good trolleybus vantage point, too. After we moved to Loughton, we used to drive home from a visit to gran's in dad's car all the way under the trolley wires until they finally finished at the turning circle in Epping Forest by the Napier Arms pub. The circle is still there, somewhat surprisingly.

Going home at night in dad's battered old 1948 Ford Anglia and seeing the trolleys clicking along in the darkness through the forest, all lit up and filtering the shadows, is one of the most vivid memories of my childhood. Somehow, the bendy buses of to-day do not give me that same feeling of excitement!

I could go on and on but don't want to bore you, just thought I would write and say thanks for such a great site and I shall definitely be recommending it to friends of mine, who are also interested in London's bygone transport. I, for one, will be delving into it again and again.

With many thanks.