Opus 1
We all start somewhere, and here is my very first successful photograph. It was taken with a Kodak Bantam camera of 1938 vintage, late of my grandfather, and I still retain it, complete with original art deco box and instruction manual. I can no longer use it, as the Kodak VP828 film it requires has long ceased to be available. With just eight exposures per film, my schoolboy pocket money allowed me to take just four pix per month - so I learnt how to make the best of each exploratory exposure.
What impeccable taste I had in buses though! Here we see not only my favourite marque, an AEC Regent V, but it also carries my favourite make of body, by Charles H. Roe, and it is in the light blue and grey livery of my favourite operator of the time, the Executors of Samuel Ledgard Ltd. The unusually-registered 1954U was one of the final batch of six buses delivered new to Samuel Ledgard, in 1957. They represented a departure from the norm by being AECs - Ledgard had previously been loyal to Leyland for its new deliveries. The location is outside Ledgard's Otley depot, and the date was 11 June 1966 - three days before my 16th birthday.
The shiny car alongside is clearly of the Hillman Imp family, but the extra brightwork suggests that it is a badge-engineered Singer Chamois. Fancy naming a car after a window-cleaner's wash-leather...
Opus 1
We all start somewhere, and here is my very first successful photograph. It was taken with a Kodak Bantam camera of 1938 vintage, late of my grandfather, and I still retain it, complete with original art deco box and instruction manual. I can no longer use it, as the Kodak VP828 film it requires has long ceased to be available. With just eight exposures per film, my schoolboy pocket money allowed me to take just four pix per month - so I learnt how to make the best of each exploratory exposure.
What impeccable taste I had in buses though! Here we see not only my favourite marque, an AEC Regent V, but it also carries my favourite make of body, by Charles H. Roe, and it is in the light blue and grey livery of my favourite operator of the time, the Executors of Samuel Ledgard Ltd. The unusually-registered 1954U was one of the final batch of six buses delivered new to Samuel Ledgard, in 1957. They represented a departure from the norm by being AECs - Ledgard had previously been loyal to Leyland for its new deliveries. The location is outside Ledgard's Otley depot, and the date was 11 June 1966 - three days before my 16th birthday.
The shiny car alongside is clearly of the Hillman Imp family, but the extra brightwork suggests that it is a badge-engineered Singer Chamois. Fancy naming a car after a window-cleaner's wash-leather...