On the road to ChesterBus Fest

In the first half of a two-part feature, Adrian Morton speaks with Matthew Davies, owner of multiple heritage vehicles and organiser of ChesterBus Fest, held in the city on Sunday 13 July, about the growth of his fleet

Matthew Davies’ interest in Chester City Transport started in the 1970s, when catching the bus into the city was a regular activity for his mother with two young children, Matt and his brother Clive, to carry out the weekly shop and to visit Nanna and Grandad; his father had the luxury of a car to travel to and from work. Their trip consisted of catching the number 11 ‘Grove Avenue’ bus from Vicars Cross to the city before catching either a number 7 or 8 ‘Cliveden Road’ service to Lache. Chester was never known as a city to them, it was always known as going to town!

Chester Corporation was like many others; it never actually displayed the area which the bus was travelling to but a local landmark which residents would know, most of them being public houses: the Rake & Pikel being Huntington and the Trooper Inn being Christleton. Supposedly, this stemmed from the war years.

Matt explained: “It always seemed through young eyes that the newer buses were used on the Vicars Cross services and the older buses were used on the Lache and Blacon services.” He realised in later years that this was not always the case. The newer buses to which he refers were the early Northern Counties bodied Daimler Fleetines, and the older buses the Guy Arabs. Chester was famous for what were affectionately known locally as ‘The Guys.’ Being high-capacity vehicles, they were used regularly for routes serving Chester’s large residential areas.

Matt continued: “Soon I began to notice the differences in the style of buses. The slow sweeping fronts of some, to the rear overhang of a Fleetline, which would sweep over a pedestrian curb stone without hitting it, to the wonderful sounds of the gearbox and the whoosh of the ‘bacon slicer door’ of a Guy Arab.” Chester had two bus companies and if you were a true ‘Cestrian’ you knew them by their colours. They were either maroon or green. In other words, you caught a ‘Corporation bus’ or a ‘Crosville’ one. It has been written many times elsewhere of why each company didn’t venture into each other’s territory but with Matt being born and growing up in Vicars Cross, he said “we were definitely the ‘Corpy’ and not the ‘Crossy!.”

Early years

From a very early age his real interest was railways and model railways at that. Each Christmas and birthday were spent unwrapping the latest model which he had asked for. It was during the mid to late 1970s that a friendship started at school with another likeminded enthusiast, Andrew Lowe. They would spend the long summer holidays enthralled with railways in one way or another. This continued right through their junior school years, up until they started high school in Christleton. For pupils from Vicars Cross to attend the school, which was about three miles away, it meant either riding one’s bike or catching the bus. This is where the attention of buses and Chester City Transport was truly captured.

Andrew’s father had an interest in buses, stemming from his connections in Leicester before moving to Chester, so Andrew already had a little knowledge of these vehicles to which he duly passed onto Matt. Andrew’s father spent much time with them both, cycling to the Chester depot and allowing them to watch the comings and goings of the fleet, which they did with amazement. Chester had a fleet of around 50 vehicles at this time, 20% of them being Guy Arabs (number 1, of 1953 vintage, was retained for driver training duties and private hire work).

Andrew and Matt never thought of themselves as bus enthusiasts, only really being interested in the goings-on of Chester City Transport, so didn’t really realise what era they were growing up in. Matt was told in later years that when Birmingham had withdrawn their last Guy Arab from service, in the late 1970s and early 1980s enthusiasts would make their way to Chester to get their ‘fix’ of Guy Arab sounds! Coupled to this was the ongoing militancy of the Crosville depot at Wrexham, where staff were adamant that they were not surrendering the conductor positions and going over to one-man operation.

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