Todmorden U3A Goes To Bury

Yesterday, Wednesday, Todmorden University of the Third Age organised a trip to Bury Market. This would involve a ride to Rawtenstall in one of Yelloway's splendid modern charabancs.  You must remember Yelloway's - it's an Oldham firm - which in the 1950s on summer evenings did runs to 'Three Counties' for 3/6 each.

Once at Rawtenstall's totally fake re-built railway station we awaited the 10.45 steam hauled train to Bury. It was not on time. 

So we had plenty of time to look around the station and thought this poster could lead to misunderstanding.


This thing turned up at 10.55 and we traipsed round to be photographed next to it - in order to look less old I guess. The engine was built at the North British Locomotive Works, Glasgow, in 1926.

Hello, I thought, this train is also having an "evacuation experience". What's going to happen? I imagined screaming kids ripped from the arms of their parents by caring nuns and hauled unceremoniously to rural Oxfordshire or Suffolk, then months later brought back again to London, bombing and city happiness.

Well, here's Miss McKie ordering her charges onto the train in Bury ready for the "evacuation experience". However that was to commence with mass toileting in a block to the left.

The geezer below explained the whole story of this preservation railway. Obviously it was a Beeching closure, but as there was a coal concentration depot in Rawtenstall a single track was maintained into the 1980s. However only the Bury railway building are original to BR and its ancestors. Above, note the modernity of the architecture. This is the only preservation railway with a genuine BR 1950s Stalinist Brutalism railway station.


We then went to the transport museum next door. Look at the bus on the left. It is a lovely Leyland PD2, and one of the last to be built in the early 1960s for Bury. Note the front entry automatic door. The ancient PD1s & 2s in Oldham were all rear entry; open to the elements. The rest of the vehicle is just like ours in Oldham that took us to school. They used to tear down Ashton Rd at 45 mph despite having a speed restriction to 30 mph printed on the side. Then over one weekend they were all withdrawn by a public transport inspector as unroadworthy. Terrible shame, but we did have a wonderful period for bus enthusiasts of gazing in awe at all the random buses borrowed from all over the north west's local authorities. The destination blinds were highly problematic.

Now the big thing of this trip was actually to visit Bury Market, which has been voted "The Best Market On The Planet", or some such. We walked round it several times. This pie stall promised wimberry pies. I just had to have one and it was delicious.

Other purchases included a pile of excellent bed linen: king size duvet cover, 4 pillow cases and so forth in Egyptian cotton percale for £28. Can't get that at John Lewis.

I was delighted to find Granelli's ice cream on sale at Bury market. I had a vanilla cornet and swear it tasted exactly as it had done 40 years previously. Christine was tempted by a liquorice flavoured ice cream but managed to control herself.

The High St. was most enlightening. Criminal law seemed very popular.

Then it was back on the 15.45, which left Bury at 15.58. You can see that other U3A clientele came back laden with the famous Bury black puddings.