Rochdale, north of Oldham, was just another municipal bus operator when the photo below was taken of a Leyland TD4c in the mid 1930's blue livery. BDK 355 was on the No. 9 route to Hathershaw, not Ashton you will note, as the service from Hathershaw into Ashton was by ancient looking trolleybuses at that time....
Then in 1937, the new General Manager, Mr. Cherry, introduced a striking new livery that became the hallmark of Rochdale. The first bus delivered during Arnold Cherry's reign was this AEC Regent I Fleet No. 122 in 1935. It is shown carrying the streamline livery in the early 1950's. Compare this 5-bay English Electric body with the ancient looking EE 6-bay variant that Oldham continued to buy until 1937....
The sleek post-war AEC's were a familiar sight on the longish Ashton route even in my late teens. This is one of the Weymann bodied batch delivered in 1949. The nearside lower deck swoop was done away with later, and the blue taken along the bonnet side and across the cab front....
This rear view shows the externally mounted indicator box. This bus has a replacement emergency window.....
I first spotted one of these 8' wide Regents with East Lancs body around 1951 at this very spot in Ashton. I just had to ride it! The conductor, however, had other ideas and told me to get on the bus in front. He went for a cup of tea so I climbed aboard once the bus in front had departed! Little did I know at the time that I would spend many early mornings in Ashton's canteen in the building on the right while on workmen turns.
This Regent V had just arrived at Ashton and would stay here outside the fire station until it could move onto the stand across the road ready for the return to Rochdale. I spent many happy time in Mr.Billiard's tea shop (on the right) watching the buses coming and going before choosing my
prey either to Hyde or back home to Oldham...
Rochdale threw it all away in November 1961 when it adopted all over cream with Lark blue trim in place of Monastral blue. Cost-cutting measures were nothing new in the greater Manchester area, but Rochdale's ice cream van livery looked very much over the top in an area where buses were difficult enough to keep clean especially in Winter.