Not that they are into standing around on street corners, taking bus numbers you understand. No many of these good folk are into buying up old buses to restore and make them road-worthy again.

Now one bus is very much like another to me, but not to them - and none more so then an Open -Top type, which is what brought these bus spotters and me a couple of weeks back to an early Saturday morning visit to Southend Bus Station where local bus company- Stephensons coaches had come up with the brilliant idea of getting together with the bus enthusiasts of Castle Point's Bus museum who lovingly look after 31 veteran buses, to create a summer service along Southend sea front of open top buses complete with drivers in white driving coats and conductors with their ticket machines.

Now unless, you have travelled atop one of these road monsters, you'll never understand the pure delight of open top bus travel. For apart from the wind in your hair, there's the unrestricted view, all the better for the game of grabbing leaves from overhanging trees in Chalkwell or spying the secret garden swimming pools of Thorpe Bay. This Southend open top service, even has it's own tradition, whereby the bus halts just before diving under the pier bridge, to give the conductor time to climb the steps ask all on top to remember to sit down as we pass under the pier bridge..

You could even (assuming you follow football) take your own silver trophy with you, and pretend your the triumphant skipper of Southend United, your heroic team behind you, parading a winning F.A. cup through fan packed Southend Streets. Well not much chance of that ever happening, but at least the forty minute trip can still be yours, for according to Stephensons Coaches, they'll be running the hourly service (Number 67 if your standing at a bus stop) between Leigh and Shoeburyness via the sea front every weekend until late July, and then daily till early September. I can't think of a better way of spending forty minutes.

ENDS