A Bus Journey Through Britain

Liverpool to Manchester There's something about Liverpool that I never tire of. It's got character, vivacity, a proper local accent. You can forgive it being a bit cocky at times because, frankly, it has an awful lot to be proud of.  After all, the city does hold the Guinness Book of Records' title of the UK Capital of Pop. More musicians with their origins in Liverpool have had a number one hit than from any other place in Britain, but it doesn't start and end with the Mersey Beat. The city also has the largest collection of Grade II-listed buildings outside London – 2,500 of them, plus 250 public monuments. The Walker Art Gallery houses one of the best collections of European art outside London. The city is also home to the Tate, and the largest cathedral in Britain. And then there's Superlambanana. How could you not love a place that commissions something as daft as this? This bright yellow sculpture, part lamb, part banana, was created by the ...

Wrexham to Liverpool It’s a fairly short day today so I permit myself the luxury of a leisurely English Breakfast. It's therefore quite late as I begin my walk back into Wrexham town centre. The town's fleshpots are mostly closed up apart from a few dispirited cleaners busily scraping sick and empty pizza boxes from their doorways and Wrexham seems to wear a friendlier face today.  Wrexham bus station I make straight for the town’s bus station and my first bus of the day, an Arriva service to Chester, which soon has us romping out of town and speeding back towards England. Quite suddenly the road tips over a steep escarpment and drops quickly onto a vast, low plain with fields and tall stands of poplars stretching almost as far as the eye can see. It's a bit of a shock; having travelled to Wrexham from the Welsh hills I had no sense of the town being anything other than relatively low lying. It's surprisingly to find that it is apparently at a far highe...

Shrewsbury to Wrexham Just inside our front door at home is a small painting by a local artist called John Coatsworth. It's a view of the Tyne Bridge on a cold, wintery evening with a couple huddling under a wind-blown brolly as they scamper across the bridge. A Newcastle Corporation bus passes by, its cabin lights glowing warmly in the gloom. It’s not the couple that immediately catches your eye but the bus, partly because it looks so warm and inviting and partly because its painted a bright egg yolk yellow which was the colour of all Newcastle buses until the 1980’s. Tyne Bridge by John Coatsworth Bus liveries used to be very much about places. At one time, it was possible to recognise instantly exactly where you are in the UK just by checking the colour of the buses on the streets. Orange and green? Ooh, I'm in Glasgow. Dark blue? Welcome to Sunderland. Purple? Hey, I'm in Edinburgh…. And then of course there’s London, where it is decreed by prec...