Tony Stacey with his 1959 Chesterfield bus
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00:00From the Derbyshire Times, now we have Tony Statham on his 1950s Chesterfield bus.
00:04If you could just tell me a bit about yourself and how you came to own it?
00:08Yeah, I actually started with Chesterfield Transport in 1959.
00:13The actual date was September 14th.
00:16It's a happy memory for me because I've enjoyed every moment I've been with the transport company.
00:23So I started in 1959 and I do remember this 225 came in September.
00:30It was a fleet of 10 vehicles, 5 open platform buses and 5 electric doors.
00:37This one of course has been a really firm favourite of mine
00:41because I was the very first bus conductor at 19 years of age to take it out on the road on the 1st of January 1960.
00:50My driver at that time I remember was Joe Faulkner, a driver from Brampton.
00:56I've been associated with this vehicle, I've loved it and every time I used to go to the garage I'd ask if I could take 225 out.
01:04Of course, over the years it's had a good service.
01:08It's remained in loyal, more or less, working order for Chesterfield Transport.
01:16In 1984 they came off the road and they went into one-man operation which made this bus more or less obsolete.
01:26But most of them went for scrap and every single one consequently went for scrap after that.
01:34This one was due for the scrapyard in 1986.
01:38But I did ask the Chesterfield Transport Company if I could have it and give it as a present to our twin town of Darmstadt.
01:47They agreed to this, the Chesterfield Borough Council did.
01:50So myself and a fellow driver, Glyn Davies, we took it over to Germany.
01:56We set off from the town hall, we were given a civic reception and I drove it to Hull and then on to Immingham Docks.
02:04From Immingham Docks I spent 36 hours on the ship driving to Cuxhaven in northern Germany.
02:11When we got to Cuxhaven I was met by a fellow colleague of mine from Darmstadt who helped me drive the bus down and guide me all the way down.
02:21The simple reason for this, when we were going down from the autobahn there are certain bridges which you have to keep over to the right-hand side of the road.
02:32Otherwise they would have caught the top of the bus.
02:35So my colleague showed me the bridges that were low.
02:40I got pulled up three times on the way down to Darmstadt by the police.
02:44Not that I'd been doing anything wrong, it was just the fact that they were interested in looking around the vehicles.
02:50They'd never seen a double-decker vehicle in Germany.
02:53And obviously the consequence of going down, I got pulled up three times but that was no problem.
03:00It was a delight to show them all around it.
03:03On getting to Darmstadt it was received with great appreciation by the Darmstadt bus company at the time which was called Hayag.
03:13And it remained with Hayag for ten years.
03:17And then due to legislation they altered the height of vehicles in Germany to four metres high.
03:27Which this one is well over four metres.
03:30So it became obsolete.
03:32And I did say at the time, please don't scrap it, we'd like it back in Chesterfield.
03:38It's a Chesterfield vehicle and I'd like to take it back.
03:41So consequently I brought it back to Chesterfield.
03:45And it's been in good service since then.
03:49I've done weddings with it, I've enjoyed it, I've done bus rallies.
03:53And I really do appreciate this vehicle.
03:56And I've got to a point now in my life where I'd like to pass it on to somebody who can look after it.
04:02I now think I've got somebody to take it on.
04:07And I just hope it goes from strength to strength and the people of Chesterfield enjoy it.
04:12Which I'm sure they will do.
04:14I'm 25 next month Brian, by the way.
04:16And this vehicle you've got to pull yourself in and out of it.
04:21And I do feel now it should go to somebody who can look after it.
04:28My idea for bringing it back to Chesterfield was for it to stay in Chesterfield.
04:32And that's what I hope to do.