Jill Smith with Chairman, Alan Nicholson
February's speaker was a member of the Society, Jill Smith whose father started life as a bus driver and retired an inspector. Throughout, he was an avid collector of anything connected with local buses, trams and charabancs and particularly, photographs of them. Jill inherited this collection, putting some photographs on Face book, and these were the focus of her illustrated talk Local Nostalgia.
Jill asked members of the audience to contribute their knowledge to the photos displayed because many of them had no date or information other than that they were from the immediate area. The talk started with buses, then went onto trams, charabancs (some early ones had attracted a great deal of online interest from enthusiasts around the country) and ended with general photographs. Many people in the audience could remember Grimsby Transport, Cleethorpes Transport and finally the combined organisation and discussion about the different and resulting liveries.
As requested, people readily provided ideas on locations, dates and identification of the vehicles. It was a trip down memory lane to see not only early buses but areas that no longer existed such as the Bull Ring, and tram routes - as well as street scenes that were busy with people! It was interesting to note that some of the photographs of charabancs are extremely rare and Jill had received requests to copy them.
A very interesting and well received talk.