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The significance of this Bova Futura, seen turning into Buckingham Palace Road in Victoria in May 2013, was revealed last week in a special screening of a recently filmed documentary, based on the book Top Deck Daze by Bill James. The book and the film tell the story of Top Deck Travel founded by a group of Australian backpackers, Skroo, Spy and Bill, in Earls Court back in the seventies. Living in the exiled Australian community they latched on to the demand for European backpacker trips - there were already several companies in the market - but they hit on the idea of using a converted doubledecker. They literally journeyed up to Yorkshire and bought former Bristol Omnibus highbridge Bristol KSW6B C8317 (UHY357) from the scrap yards - the bus had already been partly converted inside by a previous owner. Advertising a trip to Morocco more or less by word of mouth they filled the bus and set off. Other tour operators were using camp sites, but the Top Deck bus had the big advantage of ready made accommodation and only the driver needed to be sober enough in the morning to start the day, the others could sleep it off on board, whilst other tour groups had to be up early to strike camp! Needless to say the idea caught on and the company grew to a fleet of around eighty, almost all Bristol Lodekkas, liked for their lowheight. If demand for a trip was growing beyond the fleet capacity, someone would be despatched to Yorkshire, drive another bus down and it would be fitted out and ready to roll in a few days. Certainly in those early days compliance with regulations was not the norm - assuming they knew what the regulations were! No one had a bus driver qualification and the film featured an incident at Dover docks where a bus was pulled over for displaying a Guinness label in the tax disc holder! Trips ran all over Europe, including October Beer Fests in Germany and similar binges, though the most amazing tales relate to the overland trips to Kathmandu. Expansion meant the company established a travel shop in London and with its mainly Australian customer base it got into the business of arranging cheap flights home for them, becoming one of the first bucket shops. Soon there was a chain of travel agents across Australia, the UK and other centres ultimately branded "Flight Centre", now a listed company whose CEO is Scroo Turner. The film revealed that Top Deck Travel lives on, having moved up market currently operating a fleet of Mercedes Tourismos, though back in 2013 Bova Futura YJ10JYU was photographed. topdeck.travel The film tells the story in more detail with clips from the seventies and eighties featuring a lot of Lodekkas in the cream and orange livery. Footage was obviously difficult to source so if you get to see it forgive the continuity blunders where the journey starts in a Bristol LD, then suddenly it becomes an FLF! Or read all about it in Bill James' book, Bill is the son of founder Bill.
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See the December 3rd's picture of the week and online jigsaw here.
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