Do you remember the days of Diamond buses and the Gypsy Queen?

MORE PICTURES: DURHAM IN 10 GREAT OLD PICTURES
AND MORE: DURHAM IN 12 FABULOUS OLD PICTURES

“THE waterside was used as a terminus by two bus services in 1960,” says Bob Kell. “There was the Diamond from Stanley and Sacriston, and the Gypsy Queen from Langley Park.”

And the bus in our picture (above) is a Diamond.

“Diamond were a typical firm arising from the 1920s when small buses could be bought by families,” he says.

But these small owner-drivers faced a threat from bigger companies, so in 1926 in north west Durham they formed a federation.

“The Diamond consisted of an amalgamation of 100 or so owner-drivers with directors to oversee legal matters, produce timetables etc,” says Bob. “By 1960 only six owner-drivers remained – competition was fierce in Stanley.”

The last surviving operator was JH Hammel and when its proprietor, Mary Hammel, retired in 1987, Go Ahead took over the route and retained the Diamond name which still runs from Consett, Stanley and Sacriston into Durham.

SANDRA SCOTT draws our attention to the Gypsy Queen bus service which ran from the Waterside in Durham to its base in Langley Park.

It had a colourful founder called Willy Benton, who ran an off-licence and also used his horse and cart to deliver goods around the village. When the First World War came along, the Army confiscated his horse so he bought a car to replace it.

But he liked the horses – certainly for gambling.

One day, he had far too much money riding on a race in Ireland. The money appeared lost as the horses reached the final fence, but the favourite fell and the outsider Willy had backed ran on to win, enabling him to collect £3,000 and buy his first bus.

The name of the horse?

Gypsy Queen, of course.

That first bus was a charabanc, open-topped with a retractable canvas hood. Over time, Willy’s business grew until, like Diamond, it was bought out by Go-Ahead Northern in 1989.

Clearing the sludge hump over the Wear in 1964 in Durham

“WE lived in Sacriston and regularly visited Durham on Saturdays,” says Ken Lamb. “Our bus stand at the time was along the waterside approximately beneath Millburngate bridge, so the bus is probably one of ours – the Diamond service, which still runs between Durham and Stanley.”

Our mid-1960s photos also showed the clearance of the “sludge hump” which accumulated in the Wear in the centre of Durham, much like the way waste has recently built up in the river.

Back then, the clearance coincided with the construction of the A690 Millburngate bridge over the Wear.

“I was eight-years-old in 1964 and remember seeing a lot of this happening,” says Ken, “and I have vivid memories of a little later when they started work on the bridge. For a while, the river was partially diverted so they could put the foundations in.

“It was fascinating to see a number of men in waders and they were stunning the salmon with, I think, some sort of electric prodder. The fish were carefully collected in tarpaulin sheets and carried up past the weir to continue their journey.”

IN the 18th Century, Millburngate was a respectable middle class area, but it slowly degenerated so that by the 1930s, it contained slums that were considered the worst in England. By the time our picture (above) was taken in 1962, many of them had been demolished.

Still standing in the bottom left is Lambton Walk. It consisted of a terrace of four riverside three-storey houses (the white end two are visible). Given the properties’ proximity to the Wear, Lambton Walk was so regularly flooded that its residents kept everything of any value on the first floor, from where they could look out of their bay windows as the waters rose.

Dominating the centre of the picture is Blagdon's leatherworks, founded by John Blagdon around 1834. He was a latecomer to the centuries old industry, but perhaps that allowed him to be more adaptable, employing the latest machinery and doing well enough to build himself an attractive house, Red Hills Villa, near where the miners’ parliament would be built.

By 1914, Blagdon’s was the only curriers left in the city. It closed in 1967 just as the Millburngate bridge was complete, and was demolished soon afterwards.

In front of the leatherworks is a steeply roofed white building which was the Riverside Café run by Mary Lax. Many of her customers were waiting for their buses, either the Diamond to Stanley or the Gypsy Queen to Langley Park, to take them home.