Norfolk Motor Services 316 (ACL 916X) in Bury St. Edmunds – 21 July 1984 (X842-J)

A work colleague was selling a 35mm SLR camera and gave me a try and buy option. This would have been my first camera of such type but it was faulty so I didn’t purchase it. The shutter didn’t always fully open resulting in some frames having a dark area on the left of the print. Some images were clearer on the left and less clear on the right. Also, my lack of experience with such a style of camera didn’t help! Despite all this the photos do have a historical interest forty odd years later!

Saturday 21 July 1984 – Norfolk Motor Services 316 (ACL 916X), a Duple Dominant bodied Ford R1114 new in May 1982, seen in Bury St. Edmunds when working service 082 from London to Great Yarmouth. NMS worked jointly with National Travel/National Express on the London-Ipswich-Great Yarmouth services but whether the service through Bury St. Edmunds was joint or not I can’t say.

Standing behind is a Plaxton Supreme coach of either Eastern Counties Omnibus Company Limited (or Ambassador Travel (Eastern Counties) Limited) working the same service. This was the time when Ambassador Travel was about to be split from Eastern Counties. Ambassador Travel was registered on 8 June 1984 with operations commencing on 8 September 1984.

The photograph was taken Brentgovel Street, Bury St. Edmunds across the road from the old bus station which was on the corner of Brentgovel Street and Cornhill (where the MacDonald’s restaurant was subsequently built). The shop behind the coach is now occupied by two different café businesses. The Focus Cinema, originally an Odeon which closed around 1982, was demolished circa 1983 and stood in the space between the shop and the buildings in the background.