Fifty years ago, in August 1972, the new identity was being rolled out across England and Wales
It’s a miserable week of weather at the start of August, with low temperatures across Britain and the odd spell of torrential rain. In depots across England and Wales, managers, engineers are already embroiled in the business of changing their vehicles over from their long-established, traditional colours to the new Corporate Identity.
Pages from the first edition of the NBC corporate identity manual of 1972, issued shortly after the 19 July letter. Source: NBC/The Bus Archive.
Since instructions and diagrams were sent to the local operating companies in June, the first pages of the new Corporate Identity Manual have been supplemented with detailed instructions on how to apply the new liveries, paint specifications and the precise configuration of the new symbol and company names. On 11 August, Ron Whitehouse, Group Public Relations Officer, writes to the General Managers of the 40 or so subsidiary companies issuing additional pages for the manual, the first in a series of drawings showing how the new identity should be applied, including the precise position of the new symbol and lettering, across a range of typical vehicles from venerable double-deckers to the brand new single-deck Leyland National, designed and manufactured as a joint venture between NBC and Leyland Vehicles.
Coaches are the priority as NBC seeks to capitalise on the growing recognition of the new ‘white coach’ express network. For buses, each company has been encouraged to paint a number of vehicles as soon as possible to make sure there is momentum behind a public campaign planned for the Autumn.
Local operating companies have also been encouraged to apply the identity in interim form, applying the new symbol and distinctive lettering to buses their traditional liveries so that it will gain recognition before proper repainting can be done.
Local companies across England and Wales applied the new identity following the precise layout specified in the Corporate Identity Manual, the first loose-leaf pages of which appeared in June 1972, with additional detailed drawings and instructions following over the following weeks for companies to add in to their copy of the Manual. Yorkshire Woollen’s Fleetline 693 appears in the new identity after a repaint. The ‘Yorkshire’ company name at the front is a local addition, and not part of the NBC’s standard specification. Photo and copyright: I T Langhorn.
By and large it’s going well. Coaches are being repainted into white at a rapid rate, while buses are reappearing in poppy red and leaf green as they complete routine overhauls. But there are a few areas which need attention.
First, both Norman Wilson, the design consultant responsible for the new identity, and the NBC’s HQ staff responsible for implementing it, are dissatisfied with the results of the ‘interim application’ using existing liveries and in many cases, cream-coloured lettering to match the old-style lining on buses. Whitehouse’s letter of 11 August suggests that companies “may find it economical to avoid the interim stage of ‘cream’ transfers and apply ‘white’ transfers immediately… For those fleets with waists or intermediate bands of cream, white transfer can be applied and the band painted white immediately without waiting for a total re-paint. For complicated liveries, eg cream window mouldings; more than one intermediate band, etc, this suggestion will not be practical.”
Preparing a bulk order of transfers of the monochrome NBC symbol and company names in Wilson’s new National lettering, Whitehouse asks General Managers to let him know how many white and how many cream transfers they will need for each fleets. An effect of this instruction is that only a few companies adopt the interim cream version of the new identity.
The application of the Bauhaus-inspired NBC symbol and lettering in traditional cream to match the existing liveries blunted the modernising intent of the corporate identity, and was short-lived. Devon General’s modern NBC symbol and fleetnames have been applied in cream to the traditional Exeter Corporation colours of Leyland Titan PD2 no 236, seen in Exeter in 1973.. Picture: Richard Price Collection.
Second, the carefully-specified coach and bus liveries omit a whole category of vehicle, and across NBC company chief engineers are puzzled: Yorkshire Traction’s chief engineer exclaims on 8 August that “there appears to be a gap, in that we do not know what livery to paint our semi-coaches… and I have no instructions on this point.”
For express and tour services, and for local hire, the new National white coach livery is to be used. For local buses, it’s all-over red or green with white bands, depending on ‘the company’s tradition’. But the corporate identity does not yet cover the company’s many ‘semi-coach’ or ‘dual-purpose’ coaches and buses Equipped with coach seats, for many NBC subsidies these provide some of their higher-profile, higher-profit services such as regional express routes or express commuter services on regional routes into London, notably London Country’s Green Line routes.
Internal memos from Yorkshire Traction suggest using National white but substituting the local company’s name in Wilson’s new lettering for the ‘NATIONAL’ brand. “To my mind this is an advantage”, he argues, “as we could without too much trouble change vehicles into and out of national livery without a complete repaint.” In a letter to NBC HQ on 17 August, East Midland’s General Manager highlights the problem that “our… semi-coaches have to alternate on stage-carriage [bus] work because they are vehicles receiving bus grant… There is quite a variety of colour styles spread over the years, particularly with coaches … and the only suggestion I can make is that they are painted white with a green band” to differentiate them from ‘normal’ buses. “The semi-coaches will have to be done on a similar basis, although the quantity of green will be greater.”
From the archives: on 17 August 1972, the East Midland General Manager writes on the ‘touchy subject’ of changing company colours as part of adopting the NBC identity. Source: The Bus Archive.
There’s also the question of what to do where the local company’s ‘traditional’ colour isn’t green or red – maroon, say, or blue. Maroon (or ‘dark red’) is generally replaced with NBC poppy red. But the joint companies of East Midland and Mansfield District – using maroon and green respectively – come under pressure to adopt the standard NBC green livery for all of their buses. Their General Manager responds to D Graham at NBC HQ on 17 August relenting: “I confirm my agreement to both Companies adopting the National green colour but, of course, the subject is a very touchy one as far as East Midland staff are concerned.” There are practical issues to deal with too: “I will have to advise the Chesterfield Corporation of the colour change because their vehicles are green also.” And moreover: “It will have to be appreciated that the East Midland vehicles will look a little bit odd for some time to come, because the National green over the maroon will not give the correct shade of green. This problem, however, will be common to a large number of companies and, obviously, the position will be right in the long run.”
The new corporate identity forces some compromises – including the adoption of standard leaf green to replace East Midland’s previous maroon or dark red, reflecting its integration with its sister company Mansfield District. Picture: Martyn Cummins and Richard Price.
To complicate things further, although the company is pressing ahead with the roll-out of the white coach – but “the re-painting of any vehicles cannot be properly undertaken immediately because… the only transfers we have are 50 East Midland suitable for coaches painted in the full National specification, but these have the red line under the Company’s name, whereas, in fact, we are proposing to adopt the National green.”
Having taken the decision to switch company colour from red to green in August 1972, East Midland found itself stuck with a large number of transfers for its coaches with Norman Wilson’s National lettering underlined in red, temporarily halting its roll-out of the new National identity.
Anxieties and practical challenges over which colours to adopt will continue over the coming months. The next blog will look at why, for some reason, NBC HQ turns out to be less than decisive when it comes to the use of National blue.
Read more about how the modernist-inspired design of the NBC identity was shaped by Norman Wilson’s design influences, combining his three key elements: bold, uniform colours, his distinctive typeface, and a striking monochrome version of his NBC symbol, wordlessly conveying the nature of the business, all drawn together in a grid-based layout which brought a sense of uniformity and modernity across disparate companies and an enormous variety of vehicle types.
If you have recollections of the roll-out of the new livery, how it was managed, or remember your initial reaction to it, please let us know. We’d be happy to include these in a future blog, and perhaps in the Manual book itself. Get in touch using the form on this page, or the contact page here: https://nationalbusmanual.com/contact/
Sincere thanks to The Bus Archive for providing access to the NBC archive and the original papers on which this blog is based.
Look out for the forthcoming article in the modernist magazine by Richard Price looking at the career and impact of Norman Wilson, the graphic designer and typographer responsible for the NBC corporate identity,
Fifty years ago today, on 12 April 1972, NBC Chair Fred Wood ended the annual General Managers’ conference with a press launch to introduce the new ‘Greyhound-style’ National inter-city express network to the public, with the new corporate identity at its heart.
FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY… The second, and final, day of the General Manager conference started with an open forum – taking the whole morning – on “The management style of the National Bus Company”, led by eminent professor of management Roland Smith. The NBC’s senior staff had spent the previous day listening to an introduction to the organising principles for the new Central Activities Group, which saw local companies acting as contractors, providing express and coach tours under the National brand. They weren’t happy. The change meant the removal of their own company brands and fleetnames from the industry’s most prestigious services. Over the coming months they would press for a compromise.
But for now, the stage was Wood’s and he used it to set out his vision for the new National-branded inter-city coach network. In the interview below, Wood gets his points across. In fact the journalist seems to get the impression that all of the country’s coaches are about to be replaced. The references to old, traditional practices and sweeping away the traditional colours of the operating companies must have confirmed the General Managers’ worst fears about the loss of autonomy and identity for their companies. But that battle lay ahead.
Freddie Wood, NBC chair, at wheel of Eastern Counties’ RE858 – the prototype ‘white coach’, during the press launch of the National identity, express network and the ‘white coach’, Leicester, 12 April 1972. Source: NBC, The Bus Archive.
Wood gave a series of interviews in Leicester to the national newspapers and to the specialist press. Journalists were shown the prototype White Coach and National branding. This interview with Wood, by the London Evening News’ Iain Macaskill, gives an impression of the image of the industry Wood was aiming to make.
Super-bus challenges the train – Evening News, 12 April 1972. Iain Macaskill
‘Half-price’ super-bus challenges the train.
By Iain Macaskill, Evening News, 12 April 1972
Today, as rail travellers endure increasing chaos, Mr. Frederick Wood says he is in a position to make his dream come true interlinked motorway express buses which will face the railways with half-price competition. They will be equal to the world-famous Greyhound Services in the United States.
Freddie Wood, NBC chair, at the press launch of the National identity, express network and the ‘white coach’, Leicester, 12 April 1972. The National symbol always points to the right – though after the launch this was changed for the nearside on veichles, to avoid it pointing backwards as shown here. Source: London Evening News, The Bus Archive.
MR. FREDERICK WOOD rarely travels by bus. As a company chairman he is accustomed to the luxuries of a highly-polished, executive-class car.
Yet he is giving the British bus – the original motorised form of public transport – a new lease of life.
Until a year ago he had no real interest in the transport industry. He was comfortably seated behind a mahogany desk in the top executive suite of a chemical company. The idea even of riding in a bus was utterly remote.
Not so today. His high-speed talk about the British bus Is a temptation to clamber on to the nearest one to sample its delights.
COFFERS
For this latest whizz-kid in the transport world is performing a revolution which he hopes will put the long-distance coach way out in front of both inter-city rail and air services in the popularity stakes. To start all this by the end of the year – and see it through within five years.
How can he possibly make the bus, at present the bottom of the public transport league table, a money-making machine?
It all began a year ago when Mr. Wood was summoned to see Mr. John Peyton, Minister of Transport, and asked if he would like a top job in transport. Mr Wood said ‘Yes”, became a member of the board of the National Bus Company instantly, and its chairman in January this year. And it was then that the mammoth task of filling the depleted coffers of an ailing bus industry really began.
As a “commercial and marketing man” Mr Wood, 45, found many faults. The whole structure of the NBC was “disorganised”.
COMPANIES
There was a conglomeration of companies all under the same umbrella and running multi-coloured buses in various parts of the country in their own traditional way.
In the south from Portsmouth to Margate, the Maidstone and District, Southdown, East Kent and the London Country buses were operating. Further north there were United, Midland Red and others, all of them still largely operating the same system of management which they had 30 years ago.
Now, it is all to be changed. “My first aim is to get the whole lot operating under one flag”, said Mr. Wood.
COACHES
The first step will be to have a fleet of American style inter-city Greyhound coaches competing with British Rail and air traffic. “Air traffic is out as far as transport in this country in the future is concerned because the journeys are so relatively short between major centres. And most of our fares on inter-city services will be about half of British Rail fares, with little difference in the times.”
The first prototype ‘white coach’ prepared by Norman Wilson at Lowestoft‘s Eastern Coach Works in the week before the General Managers’ Conference in Leicester. It was revealed to General Managers Conference on the forecourt their hotel on 10 April, and was shown to the press two days later. The coach is Eastern Counties’ RE858. Photo: NBC.
And, of course, the new luxury coaches, which will replace the 4000 express coaches at present operated by the multitude of regional companies will be in the new splendid white livery with the name ‘National’ in red and blue letters. Motorways will speed up the present timetables which were designed for the ordinary A class roads.
The irritation of buying two different tickets if you have to change the colour of a bus on a long journey will be dispensed with.
COUNTRY
And there will also be a more secure future for the local bus services throughout the country, which regularly come under the threat of the axe. Success on the inter-city routes will mean cash for improvements rather than cutbacks on services for the country dweller.
As Mr. Wood enthused: “Air and rail transport are inflexible, but the bus is the most flexible and versatile form of moving people about en masse. And this is going to be the thing in the future.”
COSTS
To prove it he quoted examples. London to Bristol in 2½ hours. Return fare £2.50. By rail the cost is £4.10 return with a single journey time of two hours.
“But don’t forget that the bus takes you from city centre to city centre, not from station to station” added Mr. Wood.
He means business. But when did you ever last look forward to having a long distance trip on a bus – even if it did cost less? That is the real battle Mr. Wood has to win.
——
There’s more to follow on the design and launch of the NBC Corporate Identity. Do you have memories of the adoption and roll-out of the NBC Corporate Identity? If so get in touch using the form on this page, or the contact page here: https://nationalbusmanual.com/contact/
Fifty years ago today, on 10 April 1972, Fred Wood, in his 100th day as NBC Chair, took the General Managers’ annual conference by storm. Revealing his vision and plan to revive the fortunes of the bus and coach industry, he put the business’s new identity stage-centre – along with its creator, Norman Wilson.
It’s 100 days since Frederick Wood took up his appointment as chair of NBC, and this evening, at the annual conference of the General Managers of the local subsidiary companies, he will set out his approach for reviving NBC’s commercial fortunes.
Frederick Wood, NBC Chairman appointed on 1 January 1972, described himself as a ‘corporate identity man’. On his desk is the NBC symbol perspex box, handed out by Norman Wilson to each Board member in an effort to win them over. (Photo: NBC, The Bus Archive)
At 4-5pm, the delegates begin to arrive at the conference centre at a Leicester hotel, which will be the venue for three days of discussions and planning. And at 5:30pm, Wood is due to give his opening address. Mysteriously, ahead of everything else on the following day’s agenda – planning, marketing, cost and operations management – pride of place on the opening evening is given to a talk on something called “CORPORATE IDENTITY”, led by an outsider to the group – Mr N Wilson, a design consultant.
The original agenda for the 1972 General Managers’ conference: after the Chair’s introduction, the key address on the opening evening is Norman Wilson on ‘corporate identity’. (Source: Bus Archive)
The mystery doesn’t last long once Fred Wood is on his feet. He sees a bright future for NBC and its subsidiaries – but only if they can improve and manage cots and reliability on bus services (around 85 per cent of the business), and develop a profitable national coach network based on express services, tours and holidays, car rental – and anything else to which NBC’s resources and talent can be profitably deployed.
A national network requires a national identity. Wood argues that developing ‘a sound constructive ‘National’ image is central to successfully marketing a national product; drawing attention to NBC’s progress and performance; and to raising staff morale and commitment.
“I must here declare an interest and say frankly that I have been a lifetime “image” man. I was therefore a bit disturbed on my entry on the N.B.C. scene, to find the existence of a policy of virtual anonymity… . this cannot apply now in the light of our proposed policies and in fact this conference is being conducted under as large a glare of publicity as we can generate as a first move of the N.B.C. out of its chrysalis into the broad light of public view.
“We are convinced that the only way of maximising return on activities like Express is to operate a National system and in consequence we must develop as rapidly as possible a sound constructive ‘National’ image.
“The livery of the Express Coach which you will see shortly is only one expression of the new corporate identity programme which will eventually permeate all the visual aspects of N.B.C. such as uniform, literature, tickets, public signs and booking offices.
Norman Wilson, design consultant to the NBC Board, was the graphic designer responsible for all elements of the new corporate identity, working closely with Fred Wood as he had previously at Croda. (Photo: NBC)
It is left to Norman Wilson himself, speaking at 6pm, to set out the logic, the symbol, and the new National identity he has developed in concert with Wood. In line with Wood’s vision of operating companies acting solely as contractors to a new Central Activities Group, which is to run the new coach network, the names and brands of the operating companies will disappear entirely from their own vehicles. Whatever the merits of a National brand, it is this that grates with the General Managers of the operating companies in the room.
NBC General Managers in around 1970. (Source: NBC/The Bus Archive)
Norman Wilson’s session is billed as leading to a ‘discussion’ – but in the end this is not what happens. Instead, the General Managers are led from the room, through the lobby and outside onto the hotel forecourt – where the prototype White Coach is waiting for them to inspect -in full National livery with the red and blue symbol and logotype. And – with no local company name. The evening continues with dinner. There is enthusiasm for Wood’s bold optimistic vision and sense of purpose in reviving the fortunes of an industry in trouble. But as for the loss of local identities from the industry’s flagship project – there will be murmurs over the next two days of the General Managers’ conference, plotting, and opposition.
This is the first prototype ‘white coach’ prepared by Norman Wilson at Lowestoft‘s Eastern Coach Works in the week before the General Managers’ Conference in Leicester. It was revealed to General Managers Conference on the forecourt their hotel on 10 April, and was shown to the press two days later. The coach is Eastern Counties’ RE858. (Photo: NBC)
Sadly we don’t have a copy of Norman Wilson’s remarks at the conference – though you can get a good idea of his thinking here. But, from the Bus Archive, we do have a full set of Fred Wood’s notes, setting out his views on the business’s commercial prospects, the way ahead for stage bus services, and his vision for expansion of the express coach and holiday travel businesses. Throughout, it is clear that the corporate identity was central to his model of how to progress. The fact that he gave the most prominent speaking slot at his first conference with his General Managers to Norman Wilson is testament to that.
Here in full is Fred Wood’s speech setting a new course and ambition for NBC, and spelling out why corporate identity is central to it.
Frederick A S Wood, Chairman, National Bus Company: opening address to NBC General Managers’ Conference, Leicester, 10 April 1972.
Some of you may have felt a sense of dismay when you heard last summer of the intended appointment of another non-busman as Chairman of NBC. You may have wondered why the Minister should decide to nominate an unqualified businessman who has made his career in the chemical industry to succeed a chartered accountant who had spent most of his working life in the electrical industry. And, if there was this feeling of dismay, I sympathise. I have in the past often stoutly maintained that the best businesses are run by full-time professionals. However, as you might imagine in this case, I have to suggest that there may well be special factors which modify the general rule and make a team of part-time Chairman and full-time Chief Executive the best one to cope with the job at hand.
Fred Wood, NBC Chair, 1972-1978. (Photo: NBC)
Suffice it to say that I commenced in office on 1st January and on the same day Jim Skyrme took over from Tony Gailey as Chief Executive. I was glad to have been able to contribute to the selection process from which Jim emerged as the unanimous choice and I know it has given general satisfaction that we selected not only a life-time busman, but also a leading executive from N.B.C. itself.
In January, the new partnership of myself and Jim Skyrme began, supported by a reconstituted Board and the first one hundred days of the new regime expired at midnight last night.
The first hundred days smacks of a definite programme in the Kennedy, or even Wilson, tradition and I must therefore make clear that I do not believe in quick off-the-cuff solutions to major problems. When I discussed my appointment with John Peyton, I asked for and was specifically granted a five-year term instead of the more normal three years, because in my view three years is not a long enough period to accomplish the task of getting N.B.C. firmly on the road to long term viability. With these points in mind, you will not expect me to produce a list of definite objectives accomplished in this period. Rather we have been contenting ourselves specifically with reorganising and restructuring N.B.C. so that the company will be in the best possible shape to achieve the objectives that we have set.
You will by now be familiar with most of the details of the restructuring, but here are a few of the salient points.
1. We have taken steps to break down the schism between the part-time N.B.C. Board members and full-time management and also to allow Board members to contribute more to the work of N.B.C.
2. We have reduced the number of regions to three and modified; the regional structure so as to develop a more direct and dynamic chain of responsibility running from Chief Executive through Regional Director (and Executive) to Chief General Manager and then to General Manager.
3. We have introduced major new executive functions for vital areas such as Central Activities, (of which I shall speak more later), and Property.
As I have said, these and other changes are all designed to move N.B.C. as a whole into a better shape to tackle the very real problems and to enable us to fulfil our objective.
Before going any further, I must therefore give you my idea of what I see is our object. I have done my best to put this simply in one sentence and this is the result.
MY OBJECTIVE FOR N.B.C IS THAT WE SHOULD BE ABLE CONTINUOUSLY TO PROVIDE THOSE MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC WHO WANT IT A GOOD RELIABLE PUBLIC ROAD TRANSPORT SERVICE AND MAKE A PROFIT FOR THE NATION IN DOING SO.
Now if this was a free-for-all instead of being the well-behaved gathering that it is, half the audience would be on its feet shouting me down and providing better alternatives as to what they consider our aims should be. I can hear the ghostly voices now:
“Who said you are supposed to make a profit? The 1968 Act says such and such…”
“Everyone knows that buses cannot be run out of the fare-box.”
“You should cut routes and services back relentlessly.”
“Jam up the fares so that every route pays.”
However, my view is that the only reasonable course open to us is to settle for a straightforward aim of service with profit and to get on with the job.
Before going on to say how I think we can achieve this aim, I should mention some of the background factors, good and bad, that I have taken into account in planning our strategy.
1. The major minus factor which faces us quite clearly is the persistent decline in stage-carriage passengers as a result of the public’s obstinate insistence on the delights of the private motor car.
2. Another is a serious erosion in the standard of performance, particularly as regards return on capital, in some parts of the company.
This can partly be attributed to the sometimes inevitable institutionalisation which often accompanies being part of a large group, whether nationalised or not. One of the great dangers of national ownership is that it removes the final sanction of bankruptcy. I feel reasonably sure that the results of some of the companies in the Group over the last three years would have been considerably different if they had been privately owned.
3. Despite the fact that most of the companies have been grouped together for years before the formation of N.B.C. in 1968, the degree of standardisation in vehicle and engine purchasing achieved to date cannot be regarded as satisfactory. Computer development has similarly been on a completely decentralised basis and even now we cannot decide whether it is best to brush or spray paint a vehicle.
“Even now we cannot decide whether it is best to brush or spray paint a vehicle.” A still from the NBC television advert “The colour’s changing”. (NBC, from Tony Pattison’s collection.)
4. I suggest that the industry at large has become far too complacent and used to citing the manifest difficulties that surround bus operations as reasons for indifferent results. An example of this feeling is the general attitude to the poor results of 1970. These are dismissed as being exceptional, when in fact it might be argued that any poor result for whatever reason arises at least in part out of some error or omission of management and that the disaster of 1970 could have been foreseen and partly if not completely averted.
5. Bus companies are controlled and to a considerable extent hamstrung by local authorities, traffic commissioners and government departments. Changes in government policy, regional planning and city development all affect us strongly.
All public services, and the bus is no exception, tend often to become very convenient political footballs and N.B.C. suffers from this at the local and national level.
On the plus side:
1. The bus remains throughout the world the most flexible and adaptable means of moving people about in bulk. Railways, mono-rails and similar devices must have a track, which in this century usually proves to be prohibitively expensive. Air travel is ineffective inside the U.K. as a means of public transport. And as campaigns by successive government against the private car proceed, the bus must eventually come into its own.
2. We have a monopoly or quasi-monopolistic position in many areas and however you like it that must have good points. Furthermore most of our companies are household names in their particular locality.
3. There is a prodigious amount of talent (not all of it fully used) in N.B.C. Our human resources in terms of management and labour are very real and very considerable.
4. We have excellent engineering facilities, maintenance centres, bus depots and much real estate capable of considerable development.
5. We are adequately capitalised for our needs (if we accept the rather quaint debt structure in which we work under the Exchequer).
Having outlined our main aim and listed plus and minus factors, I propose to explain to you our planned strategy to achieve our objective.
The strategy is two-pronged.
STAGE-CARRIAGE STILL CONSTITUTES THE VAST BULK OF OUR TRAFFIC AND EARNINGS. WE PROPOSE TO MAINTAIN AND IMPROVE OUR SERVICE IN THIS AREA BY WHATEVER MEANS·IS AT OUR DISPOSAL, SPECIFICALLY INCLUDING VITAL AND ENERGETIC MANAGEMENT AND METHODS, MARKETING, ECONOMIES AND RATIONALISATION.
WE INTEND VIGOROUSLY TO DEVELOP ALL OTHER LEGITIMATE AREAS OF GROWTH IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT TO WHICH OUR ASSETS IN HUMAN RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT CAN BE APPLIED. SPECIFICALLY WE WILL EXPAND ON A NATIONAL BASIS INTER-CITY SERVICES, EXTENDED TOURS AND POSSIBLY DEVELOP INTO SELF-DRIVE CAR HIRE, TRAVEL AGENCY AND OTHER ALLIED ACTIVITIES.
Now to explain these.
As I have said, the great bulk of our business (say 85%) is still in stage-carriage. We must therefore continue to maintain pressure in this main area. It will, for the time being at least, continue· to be operated on a company basis, although of course, we shall continue the policy of merging companies where appropriate. The traditional liveries and names will continue although we expect to propose a linkage via a common emblem for all N.B.C. companies.
We must ceaselessly pursue all possible avenues of profitable service in this area. We must examine bus and mini-bus franchise schemes for country areas. We must consider jointly with the Post Office and National Freight a return to the village carrier for some areas. In every possible way we must seek out what the customer wants and try to fulfil his requirements at a profit.
I believe that in a few years, enough pressure from governments here and abroad will bring counter-legislation against the car which will bring the bus into its own, but we shall be realistic and assume that that is not going to happen for the next few years and that in that period the car will continue its relentless progress.
In which case, we may well be faced with further declines in passengers on stage-fare business however hard we try to fulfil the public’s requirements. If that is the case, how do we tackle the problem? The classic answer often thrown at us is (a) increase fares and (b) reduce service.
It always seems to me that this is advanced by those without hard business experience, who completely fail to understand the unique problems and disadvantages of a declining market. Raising prices may cope with inflation but when applied to a diminishing volume of business, the effect is to produce nasty side-effect of driving away even more customers. Eliminating routes leaves existing overheads with less business to service them and valuable facilities only partly used. I believe if we were to try and solve the problems of N.B.C. by increased fares and reduced routes alone that we might well be out of business before my term is up.
What is the answer?
You must, of course, increase fares and reduce routes as circumstances dictate, but I believe the key to the problem is to find profitable growth areas for all these resources of human talent and physical facilities to be used on as the decline in stage-carriage proceeds, so that the slack may be taken up.
This reasoning lies behind the establishment of the Central Activities Group, about which I now propose to speak in some detail.
As you will know, we have set up the Central Activities Group and the Chief Executive has nominated David Glassborow as the Director in charge. This Group will have a growing number of divisions. The first two of these will be (1) Inter-City Express Operations and (2) Extended Tours.
As far as Express is concerned, I believe that this is an area where we can improve on a necessary and popular service to part of the public to a very real extent. This can be a growth area and one in which we can work profitably. I visited Greyhound in the States last year and some of my thinking on Express has been influenced by their experience. At any rate, we propose to follow very broadly the recommendations of the Garratt report, which run briefly as follows:-
(a) All Express operations of N.B.C. companies will be run as one service under one management as a division of the Central Activities Group.
(b) There will be a common livery for all the coaches concerned and naturally common working systems, tickets and general conditions.
(c) Those companies concerned only with coaching will be absorbed into the Central Activities Group.
(d) Those stage carriage companies that presently run Express Services will continue to own, operate and maintain the vehicles under a leasing arrangement with the Express Division.
The National identity was rapidly applied to inter-city express coaches and tour vehicles, managed by NBC’s Central Activities Group. Initially te identity of the local operating company was to be lost entirely (Photo: Richard Price
Next we shall consider Extended Tours. This again is a potentially profitable area which we shall operate in future as a centrally-controlled function.
Self-drive hire cars present a growth area in transport to which some of our facilities may be usefully applied. Our network of booking offices suggests that there may be good grounds for us considering a national chain of travel agencies and there are other areas that we shall be exploring as the months pass.
In addition to the Central Activities Group, we shall strive to maximise our return from our substantial property interests and to this end a Property Department has been set up under the direction of Mr. Womar.
Broadly speaking therefore our policy is to continue to press the traditional stage-carriage business through the three new regional groups and to apply new and strong effort on our centralised activities.
So far I have told you of our reconstruction, told you of our main aim, listed a few plus and minus factors and explained our principal strategy.
Before I conclude I would like to deal with a number of specific points which may help you to understand the thinking behind some of the more obvious tangible aspects of this policy.
I must first give you my views on corporate identity or if you prefer, image. I must here declare an interest and say frankly that I have been a lifetime “image” man. I was therefore a bit disturbed on my entry on the N.B.C. scene, to find the existence of a policy of virtual anonymity. Tony Gailey and others explained all this to me and I accept that in the past, with all activities being conducted by the companies, there was an active disincentive to a central image. However that was in the past, it cannot apply now in the light of our proposed policies and in fact this conference is being conducted under as large a glare of publicity as we can generate as a first move of the N.B.C. out of its chrysalis into the broad light of public view.
“N-and-shadow”… and shadow. The NBC symbol perspex box, handed out by Norman Wilson to each Board member in an effort to win them over. (Photo: John Oldfield)
We are convinced that the only way of maximising return on activities like Express is to operate a National system and in consequence we must develop as rapidly as possible a sound constructive ‘National’ image.
A concern for the outward image always brings with it the accusation that one is more concerned with window-dressing than making real progress. I strongly refute this, however, and will list a few specific reasons why I believe in a strong corporate identity programme.
It is obviously absolutely necessary to the successful marketing of a national product.
To focus public attention on oneself is to provide a constant and irremovable goad towards progress, better performance and growth.
Internal morale at all levels is automatically stimulated and inspired.
The livery of the Express Coach which you will see shortly is only one expression of the new corporate identity programme which will eventually permeate all the visual aspects of N.B.C. such as uniform, literature, tickets, public signs and booking offices.
The second specific subject I wish to refer to is performance.
As I briefly mentioned, it is my view that the performance of many companies has been extremely poor particularly in terms of return on capital. Although we are owned by the Government, we are a commercial concern and we must be judged and judge ourselves on performance. High performance is the goal-scoring of commercial football. It is the tangible sign of all those virtues which make the good businessman and which when employed make the good business.
We must reduce and contain expense, not only operating expenses but also any form of unnecessary expense or expenditure. We must maximise returns by marketing, hard selling, persuasion or whatever means are at our disposal. However we do it, the criteria must be success.
Finally I would like to answer the hypothetical question – Is there a good future for the N.B.C. and for management in the N.B.C.?
For the last twenty years I have followed the commercial fortunes of many ventures of all shapes and kinds in the U.K. and elsewhere and from this accumulated experience I drew the firm conclusion that despite the many obvious difficulties that confront us the National Bus Company and its subsidiaries have not only every chance of viability, but that we can, if we really harness all our resources., become one of the nationally-owned enterprises that regularly provides a good service and makes money at the same time.
My vision for the National Bus Company for 1976 runs as follows:-
We will be a leaner, tougher organisation than now in terms of men and vehicles. Attitudes will have changed so that performance and profit will be key factors.
Our capital employed will be much the same as to-day, but we will be making a substantially better return. Say £20,000,000 before tax and interest.
60% of our revenue will arise from stage-carriage traffic, which will conducted by fewer companies, still working under many of the old names but clearly linked together as part of a national service. The other 40% of the business will be in Express, tours and the other central activities which will all be working under a by then familiar ‘National’ image.
N.B.C. will be able to claim simply that it is as efficient and as profitable as commercial concerns of comparable size in similar industries.
I believe that a vital performance-orientated exercise of the sort I have described must offer enough posts of challenge and responsibility to all those in the industry who wish to strive for them. My vision of 1976 may not be exactly to everyone’s taste, but I hope it will commend itself to you. I invite you to join Jim Skyrme and me and the whole Board and management of the National Bus Company in turning this vision into a reality.
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There’s more to follow on the design and launch of the NBC Corporate Identity. Do you have memories of the adoption and roll-out of the NBC Corporate Identity? If so get in touch using the form on this page, or the contact page here: https://nationalbusmanual.com/contact/
The NBC Corporate Identity came as a surprise to London Country, in more ways than one.
London Country joined the National Bus Company from London Transport (LT) on 1 January 1970, forming NBC’s biggest subsidiary. On its departure from LT the company introduced its own new identity. Buses and coaches took on a new version of LT’s country-area green livery and a new fleet name. LT’s iconic roundel and Johnston lettering were replaced by a new symbol, nicknamed the ‘flying polo’, representing the shape of the new business’s operating area, which was effectively a ring around London itself. London Country had put a lot of effort into rebranding its services, publicity and buildings across the large part of the south-east of England that the company served.
National Bus Company chair Freddie Wood – instigator of the NBC corporate identity - visits London Country’s Reigate depot in April 1972, with an array of vehicles in London Country’s own dark-green livery in the background. Photo: Tony Whitehead, NBC. London Country’s short-lived ‘flying polo’ logo, in use from 1970 to 1972.London Country’s post-LT local bus livery. National Bus Company
Having invested heavily in the new company brand there was frustration at the requirement, after just two years, to replace it wholesale with the new NBC corporate identity in 1972. “Another change so soon was not really welcomed, particularly as the time it took to repaint the fleet meant that several liveries were being carried at the same time” recalls Bernard Davis, who at the time was Commercial Manager responsible for publicity and public relations in the Traffic Department, and is now a volunteer at the Bus Archive. Bernard was at the centre of both phases of rebranding: “It meant that things looked messy, as well as giving the impression that we didn’t know what we were doing. All this at a time when reliability was declining because of staff shortages and the economic crisis of the 1970s.”
Some lamented the end of London Country’s short-lived independent identity. As a contributor to the London Country staff magazine, Bernard himself captured the sense of disappointment – a move which was frowned upon at the time by NBC headquarters and senior management.
Symbolic? Bernard Davis’ cartoon depicting the demise of London Country’s independent identity – frowned upon by NBC management at the time. London Country Magazine, Christmas 1972 edition. Source: Bernard DavisA London Country bus in the original NBC green livery adopted in 1972: AEC Swift DPD460J at Berkhamsted August 1974. Photo: I T Langhorn.A classic London bus in NBC’s corporate green: former London Transport Routemaster coach RMC1480, converted for use on local stage services, on the outskirts of Dartford in the early 1970s. Richard Price Collection.
The adoption of a new livery was the biggest and most striking change. The previous dark London Transport country-area green and the green/yellow London Country identity was replaced by the much lighter shade of National green, with white NBC symbol, fleetnames and relief stripe. Out went the familiar London Transport Johnston typeface, replaced on vehicles by Norman Wilson’s chunky modern National lettering with detailed labelling in Futura. This was not, in Bernard’s view, an improvement. “The shade of green chosen seemed to be very insipid compared with the older colour. Moreover it faded very badly over time, giving an inconsistent pale blue-green shade. This eventually improved as better-quality paints were sourced by NBC.”
In the revised post-1976 bus livery, with the two-colour version of the NBC symbol. AEC Swift BPH 122H waits at Leatherhead in September 1977. Richard Price CollectionA touch of modernist design gave a new lease of life to many of NBC’s older vehicles. The adoption of leaf green was unpopular in many parts of the industry, particularly in the London area where it replaced London Transport’s long-established country-area dark green. It generally had its intended effect of giving even the oldest vehicles a modern(ist) look and projecting a progressive, confident image to users. Immaculately-preserved RT, RT604, new in July 1948 and seen here at a rally in Brighton, illustrates the effect well. Picture: Michael Ellis, Purley Transport Preservation GroupLondon Country’s ‘company identifier’, as the Manual described fleetnames, set in Norman Wilson’s National lettering. RT604 carried the revised NBC livery for a year before it was withdrawn and preserved in 1977. Photo: Michael Ellis.
There was a significant gap in the early thinking on the new NBC identity. “At first, the importance of regional long-distance coaches was not understood by NBC and its designers” Bernard recalls. “’Just paint them green’ they said. But regional coaches needed to be distinguished from local bus services – they were a very different proposition for customers.” The need for a distinctive appearance for what NBC called ‘semi-coach’ or ‘dual-purpose’ livery was largely overlooked until later in 1972 – well into the roll-out of the new coach and bus liveries. Indeed, the use of those terms – rather than ‘regional coach’ – perhaps reveals a lack of appreciation of the importance of regional express services both for customers and commercially.
For London Country, its Green Line coaches represented a significant part of the business. The company lobbied hard for an approach which differentiated these services. There were increasingly anxious requests for guidance on what to do from several NBC operating companies through 1972, as instructions emanated from headquarters to accelerate the roll-out of the new liveries in all-over white, green or red – but without acknowledging the regional coach category.
With its Green Line network, regional express services represented a large and important part of London Country’s businesses. Along with other operators. The company was instrumental in pressing NBC to develop a colour scheme to distinguish these services from normal stage bus routes. NBC called this its ‘dual purpose’ livery, though in many cases the vehicles used, equipped with coach seating, were dedicated to express services and not dual purpose at all. In February 1973, soon after the new livery was adopted, newly-repainted Green Line AEC Reliance CUV65C is seen at Aldgate on route 723. Richard Price Collection
Some companies proposed to use the white livery with a thin mid-height band in red or green; or to use all-over white with the local operating company name. London Country was influential in the development of the approach eventually adopted by NBC – with ‘semi-coaches’ using a variant of the local bus livery, but with the upper half painted white above a lower half in National green or red – and in London Country’s case, Green Line branding.
A London Country Merlin single-decker in NBC green with AEC Reliance coach in a version of London Country’s regional coach livery, at Dorking bus station in June 1979. The bus station’s ‘winged polo’ sign – part of London Country’s 1970 identity – has been altered to incorporate the NBC symbol. Photo: Jeff Jones.
In the late 1970s, London Country was influential in a further re-branding, for a re-launch of its Green Line coach network. The company got special dispensation from NBC headquarters for a new regional coach livery – a white coach with a broad green band incorporating the red and blue National symbol on a white background, and Green Line branding in large white National Alphabet lettering. Similar designs for regional coach services were later adopted by other NBC subsidiaries – for example, Eastern Counties’ ‘Eastline’ network in the early 1980s.
Green Line’s LNC45 in the NBC regional coach/dual purpose livery at Ilford in 1974. Tony Whitehead/National Bus Company.An updated version of Green Line’s regional coach livery: Leyland Tiger WPH 130Y in 1982. Richard Price Collection.
As the manager responsible for producing all of the company’s publicity material, Bernard found the corporate identity’s guidelines on publicity helpful. “The new identity – the symbol, typefaces and so on – was helpful in many ways as it provided a good framework for our own creativity. NBC, like the Tilling Group before it, had a central publicity department in the 1970s which was there to help companies with material and design, but they never dictated what was used. At the time I poked fun at the new concept, but I embraced its value in virtually everything we produced.”
London Country timetables using local artwork to an NBC design template, 1978.
NBC produced a catalogue of standard advertisements and graphics each year which could be used locally in press, leaflets and bus-side advertisements, but operating companies were free to adapt them for local circumstances. “There was no real pressure or constraint on local publicity” Bernard recalls. “While the use of advertising for National services was totally standardised, there were few rules for local advertising – other than the use of the NBC symbol and typeface for company names, and a few specific rules such as the size and format of local bus timetables.
Pages from the NBC Group Publicity catalogue for 1974-75, showing various sizes of an advertising poster using designer Tom Eckersley’s fine ‘relax by bus’ illustration. The poster uses Helvetica, rather than Norman Wilson’s preferred Akzidenz-Grotesk, which was specified in the manual for use on signage. Photo: Richard Price/Bus Archive
Bernard was party to a strange incident at the very start of the roll-out of the new identity. As for all NBC companies, photographic negatives of the NBC symbol and the company’s fleetname in the new National lettering were sent to London Country, so that they could be faithfully produced on stationary, publicity and signage without anomalies. (The vehicle transfers were supplied centrally by NBC for the same reason.) “Ours arrived, and I had to get straight on the phone to NBC headquarters.” Bernard remembers. “I rang up and asked if they had decided to rename the company.” In slight disbelief, Bernard found that the negatives he has been sent for use across the entire company read not ‘London Country’ – but ‘London Counties’. A few moments of horror followed at the other end of the telephone line. After rapid consultation, the instruction from NBC headquarters was: “Destroy it!”. Happily for posterity, this stern instruction somehow slipped Bernard’s mind, and the negative is still in his possession. For this project – and for the first time in nearly 50 years – Bernard used the negative as intended to give a faithful reproduction of an exceptionally short-lived official NBC fleetname: LONDON COUNTIES.
‘London Counties’ company identifier, from the original negative mistakenly issued by NBC headquarters in 1972 for London Country’s use. Source: Bernard Davis.
Many thanks to Bernard Davies for talking to us about his experiences at London Country and for sharing items from his collection; to the Bus Archive for access to the NBC publicity catalogues and to Michael Ellis of the Purley Transport Preservation Group and John Atkinson, for the photographs of RT604.
Vision, compromise and change in the first edition of the Corporate Identity Manual
The NBC Corporate Identity developed from a series of discussions between incoming NBC chair Freddie Wood, and leading graphic designer Norman Wilson. Wood had been chief executive of Croda International, and had employed Wilson for many years to modernise the company’s image, undertaking a comprehensive rebranding in a clean, modern style, encompassing the Croda’s symbol, marketing, packaging and vehicles. Wood was impressed with Wilson, and the two got on well.
NBC Chair Freddie Wood (left, later Sir Freddie); and design consultant Norman Wilson (right). Photo: NBC.
Wood had spent part of his early 20s in the United States, and the American way of doing business fascinated him. He was particularly struck by the extensive network of silver Greyhound coaches which he had used to criss-cross the US during his stay, offering a consistent reliable service and strong uniform branding. So when Wood was asked by the newly-elected Heath government in 1971 to take the role of chair of the relatively new National Bus Company, with the objective of making it a more commercial organisation, he was immediately struck by two thoughts. First, the Greyhound proposition of a uniform national coach network. And second, the need to ask for Wilson’s design advice in shifting the image of the long-distance coach, and the wider industry.
An iconic 1954 Scenicruiser, manufactured for Greyhound Lines by General Motors. Greyhound’s uniform branding created a strong image of a consistent and reliable national network across the United States. Photo: Greyhound Lines publicity department, in the Hemmings.com collection.Greyhound Lines’ publicity emphasised the consistency and reliability of a uniform national network for business and pleasure travel across the United States. Source: Greyhound Lines.
Wilson was actually brought on board by Wood in 1971, before his chairmanship had been formally agreed. It was in this period that Wilson had the epiphany of the ‘N-and-shadow’ arrow symbol. Once appointed, Wood wasted no time in formalising the appointment of Norman Wilson as corporate design adviser to the NBC Board. There was a formal pitch to the Board early in 1972 using design boards explaining the National symbol, graphics and the white coach in preliminary version of the corporate identity. These will form the basis of a section in the NBC Corporate Identity book. It is not clear whether other design businesses were invited to bid – but Wilson’s appointment was announced to the business and its operating companies in a letter from the company secretary to the General Managers of the local subsidiaries in February 1972, stating simply that NBC was appointing a design consultant “to advise on all matters relating to a corporate identity for the NBC Organisation” – and cautioning against overstocking on existing designs of stationery which might soon become redundant.
A public announcement was made in May 1972, with that month’s Design Journal reporting that “Norman Wilson, Manchester based design consultants, have been retained by the National Bus Company to design a visual identity programme for vehicles, signing, stationery and related graphics.”
After being persuaded that – because of production techniques and climate – a silver coach in the style of Greyhound would not last well in Britain, Wilson and Wood wanted the coaches to be purely white, with the National branding of the NBC symbol and the NATIONAL logotype in red and blue. Operating companies were to be solely suppliers to NBC’s Central Activities Group, which took responsibility for the National coach network. Local company identities were not to appear on the white coaches at all, except in the tiny mandatory ‘legal lettering’ identifying the owner at the bottom of the bodyside There was a degree of scepticism, and even push-back against the idea of a uniform corporate identity, particularly from operating companies whose local liveries in some cases could be traced back to the start of motor coaches at the beginning of the 20th century.
From the 1972 Corporate Identity Manual: Wilson and Wood’s intended National White Coach livery. The branding is purely National, with no local company fleetname, to give the sense of a single uniform national entity. Tillings Transport’s PWC 341K was the second White Coach. In the original concept presented to the NBC board, the National symbol always pointed to the right: consequently it pointed backwards on the nearside of coaches. This was replicated in the first two trial applications to vehicles, with the result that this illustration made it into the first edition of the Manual. The coach also carries a fleet number plate – in red for Eastern National’s Southend Prittlewell depot which maintained a large part of the Tilling coach fleet. This too was inconsistent with the manual’s instructions to use steel-grey lettering, transfers of which were set in Futura and supplied to each operating company. Photo: NBC, The Bus Archive.
Wood was resolute in his determination to apply a uniform white livery. He had been dissuaded from adopting a silver livery, US-style, on the grounds that that bodysides would corrode. When operators next objected to all-over white on the grounds that they would show dirt, Wilson retorted, in characteristically blunt fashion, that “they’ll just have to wash them more often then, won’t they?”
With the overall colour beyond doubt, the use of local fleetnames became the next area of controversy and compromise. The first trial application of the NBC white livery, on an Eastern Counties coach at the Eastern Coach Works in Lowestoft, had omitted the local company’s fleetname, showing only the National brand. General Managers of NBC’s operating subsidiaries were horrified, complaining that their local identities and pride in the service would be lost, and that coach users would be confused by multiple identical-looking coaches and would find it harder to locate their service.
Norman Wilson, designer of the NBC Corporate Identity, applies his NATIONAL lettering to the very first ‘white coach’ at Eastern Coach Works (ECW), Lowestoft, April 1972. Consistent with the initial presentation to the NBC Board, his ‘double-N’ symbol is pointing to the rear on the nearside of the coach in this trial application of the new identity to Eastern Counties’ RE858. This was altered in the 1972 Corporate Identity Manual, which specified that it should point in the direction of travel on either side of the vehicle. Behind Wilson, assisting with the application, is ECW’s Alan ‘Casey’ Crisp, described by Eastern Counties’ Stephen Milne as “the best coach painter I ever knew – the best at lining-out and an excellent sign-writer.” Casey spent his entire working life at ECW, retiring at 65, three years before the Coachworks closed in 1987.Wilson’s first response to demands from operating companies’ General Managers that a local fleetname should be applied was perhaps deliberately obtuse. He added tiny light-grey lettering to first ‘white coach’ – Eastern Counties’ RE858 – at about the same size as the legal lettering and ‘fuel’, ‘oil’ labels, albeit in his heavier National lettering. This achieved his objective of interfering as little as possible with the uniformity of appearance which he and Freddie Wood sought – but with lettering so small as to be almost unreadable at any distance. General Managers were not placated. The picture shows Eastern Counties Bristol RE Plaxton-bodied coach RE858 at Cheltenham early in 1972. Photo: Richard Price collection.A similar experiment was conducted with Eastern National’s Plaxton-bodied Bristol RE number 425, seen here in Southend in 1972: a tiny fleetname in grey National Alphabet lettering was placed underneath the window behind the cab. Photo: Bernard Watkin, Eastern Transport Collection Society.
Wood and Wilson relented, marginally, in response to the latter argument and a compromise was attempted. First, a local fleetname was applied as a trial to the Eastern Counties coach used in the initial trial application of the identity, using Wilson’s bespoke National lettering, but at a height barely larger than the legal lettering and in a very light grey. It was almost invisible, and the General Managers were not placated.
Wilson therefore adopted a different, more visible approach for the initial roll-out of the Corporate Identity. Local company fleetnames were applied on National coaches above the wheel arch, set in Wilson’s new National lettering, at the slightly larger letter height and in a more legible dark grey. They were further emphasised by a bold underlining, the line being the same height as the letters giving an overall height of 3½ inches, in the colour adopted by the local company for its buses. This was codified in the first edition of the Corporate Identity Manual of May 1972.
From the May 1972 Corporate Identity Manual, drawn up by Norman Wilson and colleagues, this diagram shows the ‘compromise’ initial NBC standard white coach livery, with small operating company fleetnames underlined in the company colour – in this case Royal Blue’s royal blue – with an overall height of 3½ inches. The vehicle used for illustration is a Plaxton Panarama Elite II. Source: NBC, The Bus Archive.Wilson’s design of fleetnames had a neat logic, consistent with his approach to corporate identity. It combined two of the main elements of the NBC identity, using the National Alphabet for the local company’s name, and at the same height as the lettering, a block of the NBC corporate colour identified with the operating company, usually that adopted for local buses. See our previous blog article to read about Norman Wilson’s view of the key elements of corporate identity.Royal Blue’s ECW-bodied Bristol RE number 2387 is seen in Newbury in 1973. Instead of adopting the green colour of its parent Western National, Royal Blue chose to underline its fleetname in blue – along with the National symbol and logotype, this is the only blue remaining of the company’s trademark livery. Photo: Richard Price Collection
So Eastern Counties and United coaches had a small fleetname underlined in their corporate red; as did Standerwick, a coach-only business which adopted the bus colour of its parent company Ribble. Crossville, Southdown and Eastern National coaches meanwhile appeared with fleetnames underlined in green. Other non-bus coaching businesses were given latitude, so even though their historic colours were eliminated, Royal Blue used a blue line on their National coaches, while Black and White used black.
North Western’s Leyland Leopard SJA 404K is seen in Stockport in 1972 on an express service from London to Manchester via Birmingham, with a small fleetname underlined in National red.Eastern Counties’ CB845 – a Duple-bodied Bedford VAM70 at Great Yarmouth in 1972 – illustrating both the small operating company fleetname, underlined in poppy red, and displayed in the illuminated panel; and also the challenges of fitting the key elements of the new Corporate Identity around decorative chrome bodywork. Norman Wilson’s team were supplied by coachbuilders with hundreds of coach drawings as they tried to get a reasonably uniform application of the new identity across a huge variety of vehicles. (Photo: Bernard Watkin, Eastern Transport Collection Society).Uniquely, Black & White Motorways, having no standard bus colour, adopted black underlining for its fleetname. Here Black & White coach DDG 260C – a Duple Commander-bodied Leyland Leopard – shows off the early version of the white coach identity, in Cheltenham in 1973.Standerwick – the coaching branch of Ribble – operated the largest coaches of the era, a fleet of thirty Bristol VRLL double-decker coaches – providing an express service between Manchester, Birmingham and London making full use of the new national motorway network. Standerwick’s fleetname is underlined in the Ribble bus colour of poppy red, in a vast expanse of white. Photo: Tony Whitehouse, NBC Publicity.Southdown’s Leyland Leopard LCD 232F in February 1973, with a small fleetname underlined in National green, and a small ‘National’ logotype in the illuminated panel at the front. Photo: Richard Price Collection. Eastern Counties’ Bristol MW coach LS830 shown in April 1974 in the early National livery, with local fleetname underlined in poppy red. In the bus shortage of the early 1970s, front-line express coach LS830 has been pressed into service on a local Norwich city route. The clock tower of Norwich City Hall towers over the Bell Hotel in the background. (Photo: Bernard Watkin, Eastern Transport Collection Society).From the 1972 Corporate Identity Manual: these two illustrations show the appropriate positions of the NATIONAL logotype and the operating company fleetnames on two Bristol RE coaches with different decorative bodyside mouldings. Norman Wilson’s team worked through hundreds of coach body designs to work out how to get a consistent application of the new identity across a huge variety of different vehicles. Both United Counties and Crosville fleetnames would have been underlined with a bar in NBC green, the bus colour used by both companies. Source: NBC, The Bus Archive.
The result was a bit more colour and variation of appearance than Wilson had intended, and served to differentiate the coaches to some degree. It did not however last long. The small fleetnames and coloured bands were considered both untidy, and were too small to serve the purpose of making vehicles identifiable to customers. Wilson developed and implemented a tidier approach, more consistent with the uniform look he and Wood aimed for, while also going some way to placate the General Managers. From November 1972 a revised livery was adopted, overruling the instructions in the first Corporate Identity Manual issued in May, just a few months earlier. Regardless of the company colour, local operating company names were now to appear in National-red letters 3⁵/₈ inches tall without incorporating a coloured band, displayed more prominently between the wheel arch and the windows. A letter of 9 November 1972 to General Managers from Ron Whitehouse, NBC’s Group Public Relations Officer, formalised the change of approach: “a revision to the specification regarding the size of company name. The name of the operating company should appear over the front wheels in corporate style lettering 3⁵/₈ inches high in National red.”.
This gave much more prominence to the local businesses, but in a style which fitted more consistently with the overall uniformity of the National ‘white coach’. It was this look, rolled out widely through 1973, that was to become the standard for the next two decades, and which was reflected in the 1976 second edition of the NBC Corporate Identity Manual.
By the end of 1974, Eastern Counties had rebranded coach Bedford Duple-bodied CB845 to their Mascot National subsidiary by applying the new fleetname revised standard red 3⁵/₈ inch fleetname style, but without removing the 3½ inch Eastern Counties fleetname and band in the previous style. It is seen here on a relief service in Norwich in December 1974. Photo: Bernard Watkin, Eastern Transport Collection Society.Ron Whitehouse’s letter of November Sept 1972 specified a number of alternations to the initial white coach livery set out in the Corporate Identity Manual issued in May of that year. The revised operating company fleetnames – or ‘company identifiers’ – were enlarged to 3⁵/₈ inches, in Wilson’s National lettering, and were set in poppy red, regardless of the company colour. This gave a greater uniformity to the National coach fleet. Preserved Eastern Counties Bristol RE coach RLE747 illustrates the revised style of local company fleetname. Photo: Richard Price.Futura was the typeface used in Norman Wilson’s initial work on the NBC corporate identity late in 1971. A thickened version of a heavy weight of Futura was used in the mock-ups shown to the NBC Board at the start of 1972. Before the early trials on vehicles in April, however, Wilson had switched to Akzidenz-Grotesk, on which he based his National lettering, using a thickened version of a heavy weight as the base and incorporating elements of Futura. For most signage, standard Akzidenz-Grotesk was adopted and is specified in the 1972 Manual. Nevertheless, Futura was retained on vehicles throughout NBC for labelling, fleet numbers and the ‘legal lettering’ to show ownership, and is still widely used for these purposes today. Though the Manual specified only ‘lettering in steel-grey’, NBC supplied all companies with standard labels and lettering transfers set in Futura. Photo: Richard Price.In the revised white coach livery, with larger NBC-red operating company fleetnames: Western Welsh’s coach 172, a Plaxton Panorama-bodied Leyland Leopard, at subsidiary Rhondda Transport’s Porth depot in April 1978. This standard version of the NBC livery endured for more than a decade. Photo: Richard Price Collection.Uniformity was not quite achieved with the new approach. Interpretation was often needed to reflect the different shapes and mouldings of coach bodysides. The revised instructions were ambiguous on the precise positioning of the company name ‘above the wheel arch’ and local discretion was applied, bringing the occasional reprimand from NBC headquarters. This Everall Ford R226, seen at Marble Arch in 1976, unusually has the company name almost touching the wheel arch. Photo: Richard Price Collection.
At the start of 1972, in the early development of the Corporate Identity, Wood and Wilson focussed largely on the design and implementation of the white coach as the iconic representation of NBC on the roads, and the most urgent commercial challenge to address. Thoughts turned only later in the year to the application of the identity and roll-out to local buses and mixed-use coaches. In the next Corporate Identity Blog, we will look at the early implementation of the Corporate Identity to local buses, how this was described in the first Manual, teething troubles and oddities in the early roll-out.
Photographs from the Bernard Watkin collection appear by kind permission of the Eastern Transport Collection Society. Many thanks to The Bus Archive for access to NBC records and correspondence. This article draws on conversations with Jean Horsfall, John Oldfield and Anthony Dawson – to whom many thanks.
Did you experience the early years of the NBC Corporate Identity? Please post any comments or suggestions using the box below.
Local companies adapted the NBC corporate identity to service vehicles, producing some interesting (and occasionally wild) innovations.
Michael Hitchen, author of the leading book on the subject (see links at the end), presents a guest blog on the way NBC’s corporate identity guidelines were adapted (and widely ignored!) for local companies’ service vehicles.
Although the National Bus Company had existed since 1969 it would not be until 1972 that detailed Corporate identity instruction were issued. These included every facet of the organisation activities, including livery instruction on the Service Fleet, a mixed range of vehicles from vans, lorries, recovery vehicles, trainer vehicles and a range of miscellaneous types.
The 1975 NBC manual had only this to say on applying the corporate identity to service vehicles. Local company identities were not envisaged.
Reference to the appropriate page shows a medium size van as an example for the prescribed application. Unlike PSV vehicles where interpretation was relatively restricted, the Service Fleet was far more varied and the NBC allowed this one illustration to guide all other types of vehicle. This should have been straightforward as basically it was a variation on the Central Activities Group (CAG) coach livery, all-over white with red/blue NATIONAL lettering. Oddly, apart from the small legal lettering, there was no advice for the fleetname, which for CAG coaches initially had been a very small ‘company identifier’ underlined in the local company’s bus fleet colour, so if followed as per the manual, these vehicles would have been left anonymous across the NBC fleet.
Image 1 Trent A30 AEC Militant, as per corporate guidance, apart from the inclusion of Trent in red.
While that was the official guidance, in practice each fleet choose its own interpretation. A few did follow guidelines to a certain extent: Trent was a good example of compliance, with white applied to most of its ancillary fleet apart from its tree-lopper, which received all over yellow.
Image 2 Trent A55, again in the mid-1970s Trent followed the manual closely. A55 was a Bristol LD Driver training vehicle.
Ribble followed for its Trainers and some Breakdown lorries. East Kent and Alder Valley also had white vans, though Alder Valley replaced NATIONAL with its fleet name, as did Oxford South Midland.
The rest of the fleet contained a huge variety, rule of thumb was the use of the fleets base colour, ie Grass Green or Poppy Red, though I have no evidence of NBC Blue being used on Service Vehicles.
Image 3 Hants & Dorset 9092, apart from the corporate fleet name, Hants & Dorset applied carried this livery over in 1972, with a recruitment message along with the lettering stating the bus’s use.
Variation of this application depended on the company, Crosville choose unrelieved Green on its vans and lorries and a dual-purpose livery for its recovery vehicles including it impressive AEC Matador Heavy Recovery Vehicle. National Welsh treated its vans in dual-purpose red/white but used yellow for its Recovery and training vehicles. South Wales often used red or yellow but with no fleet name. With these vehicles, variation was the running theme across the corporate NBC! The livery of Training vehicles depended on the fleet, Western National, Maidstone, Hants & Dorset, Eastern Counties use all over yellow, with variations on lettering; Eastern National and latterly Bristol, had used all over dark blue, Crosville applied a broad white band between the decks, as did Lincolnshire.
Image 4 Bristol W160, after years of using cream with an orange band, Bristol adopted the same livery for trainers as Eastern National. Image 5 PMT T466. Potteries trainer T466 display the unique non-standard blue in use in the mid-1970s, letter it used yellow.
Occasionally this lack of strict abidance would see the discreet way of continuing pre-corporate practices, initially Bristol applied Orange/Cream to much of its SV fleet, Southern Vectis applied underlined gold serif fleet names on its dual-purpose liveried van for a time and West Yorkshire perpetuated its use of non-standard green to the majority of it service fleet (apart from Trainers) throughout the 1970s!
Image 6 East Midlands T2. For its small fleet of trainers East Midland was another company to adopt a unique non-standard livery, this time a shade of dark red Image 7 Northern T431. Northern General was unique with the NBC in using yellow for its service buses, where they were in cooperation with Tyne & Wear PTE, therefore it changed to green for it Training vehicles, to avoid confusion with its buses. This photo illustrates the reasoning for this colour!
It would not be possible to list the huge variety of interpretation that companies used, many changing within the corporate period! As time progressed particularly into the 1980s livery guidance changed as well, yellow became the standard livery for Heavy Recovery lorries, possibly because of legislation, vans could be seen carrying adverts to promote commercial activities, and vans could be seen in standard factory colours, possibly a cost saving measure, or just white as they where meant to be from the start!
Image 8 West Riding A20. West Riding applied cream and black to its trainers, along with some bespoke signwriting which would have attracted the disapproval of NBC’s central projects team. Yorkshire Traction did also use similar livery for some of its training fleet. Image 9 Yorkshire Traction T8, in the mid-1970s YTC changed to this distinct Red, White and Blue livery for its driver trainers, latterly this livery could be found on some West Riding/Yorkshire trainers. Image 10 National Welsh E8. The Western Welsh group favoured all over yellow for its recovery and training fleet from 1972 onwards, Bristol MW E8 is typical of its application. Image 11 Bristol W144. Bristol had used Orange/Cream prior to 1972 and perpetuated this into the corporate era for a number of service vehicles, though this Bristol MW conversion has white in place of the cream. Image 12 West Yorkshire 4044. West Yorkshire a Poppy Red company continued using green for the majority of its service fleet throughout the 1970s. Bradford’s’ attractive recovery vehicle 4044 survives in preservation in this livery. Image 13 London Country RF79. LCBS converted three AEC RFs into Towing vehicles, all receiving variations on the yellow and grey livery. LCBS was formerly part of London Transport, which used grey for many service vehicles. Image 14 Crosville 59A. After 1972 Crosville used only NBC green (some with white) for all its service vehicle, only in the 1980s did other colours appear, AEC Matador 59A, seen here, eventually received all over yellow. Image 15. Western National RV8. Western National group, including Devon General, used all-over yellow from 1972 for all its heavy recovery lorries, AEC Matador RV8, looks superb with its company-built bodywork. Image 16. Southern Vectis 011. Southern Vectis Bedford CF van number 011 clearly show the use of pre-corporate lettering applied to the fleet’s vans in the 1970s. Image 17. National Welsh E1075. Yet more variety, Ford Escort Mk2 van carries white with a red roof. Later the company painted its small vans in a version of dual-purpose livery. Image 18. Crosville G759. For other duties companies adopted bespoke liveries, Crosville’s Information bus G759 a Seddon Pennine, gained and orange and red stripe to the NBC green, other companies ‘MAP’ buses received a range of bespoke liveries.
Many thanks to Michael Hitchen for providing this guest blog, including the photographs from his own collection. Michael is an authority on NBC’s liveries, and his book on NBC’s service vehicles is available from Amberley Books here: National Bus Company Service Vehicles 1972-1986 – Amberley Publishing ; and also from Amazon in hard copy or Kindle format.
Northern General went beyond the usual red and green, stretching NBC’s corporate identity in the streets of the north east with a vibrant mix of colours.
The NBC years are remembered for their uniformity, with leaf green and poppy red dominating bus fleets across almost all of England and Wales. They are remembered with a mix of fondness for bold modernity thrust upon cities, towns and villages still shaking off the decay of the post-war years, and resentment from those with strong attachments to the variety of semi-independent bus companies with their roots in the local community.
Northern Routemaster 2087 with hastily added NBC style fleetnames while still in BET Red, seen here at Hartlepool bus station. (Photo: Michael Mccalla)
While leaf green and poppy red dominated, there were a few parts of the NBC empire which were able to go their own way. Perhaps the most striking of these was Northern. There, managers connived with the new Passenger Transport Executive to strike out in an independent approach. The Tyne and Wear PTE had taken over municipal bus services across much of the north east of England – notably in Newcastle, Sunderland and Gateshead – and its own modernisation applied a livery of bright ‘cadmium yellow’ and cream, derived from the colours which had previously adorned Newcastle Corporation’s trams, trolleys and buses. Northern aimed to break away from the uniform red bus livery it had applied across its buses, suggesting initially to adopt the same Tyne and Wear PTE colours on its routes mainly within the PTE area.
As custodians of the corporate identity, NBC headquarters initially objected strongly. But at the same time NBC was trying to shape a new relationship with the PTEs as powerful arbiters – and major funders – of urban transport, including issuing subsidies and service contracts to NBC itself. So a compromise was struck. Northern could apply a yellow livery to the fleet for its urban routes, but not the PTE’s yellow. It had to be an NBC yellow livery, using the yellow specified in the Corporate Identity Manual, generally reserved for auxiliary and training vehicles. In all other respects the livery was to follow the manual – from the shape of the white bands to the position of the company identifiers, though these (and initially the NBC logo) were uniquely displayed in red, particularly striking on a yellow background.
Northern Routemaster 3071, recently painted into NBC yellow, accompanied by a Leyland Atlantean in poppy red, outside its home depot of Park Lane, Sunderland, early 1970s. (Michael Mccalla)
To liven things up even more, Sunderland and District Omnibus – which had been a subsidiary of Northern General since 1931– had retained a separate identity with a blue livery, initially continuing to use its existing non-NBC dark blue. During a transition, Sunderland buses ran in their blue colours with a white band, with National-style company identifiers and double arrow applied.
Sunderland’s Roe-bodied Leyland Atlantean 3174, in Sunderland and District’s blue and white livery, with NBC symbol and rebranded to Northern. Sunderland District Park Royal bodied Atlantean 171M is seen leaving Park Lane bus station, Sunderland, in its dark blue livery, painted to NBC corporate identity configuration. Photo: Michael Mccalla
So during the early 1970s, Northern General’s buses were divided into red, yellow and blue fleets; and branded with separate NBC fleetnames for the metropolitan areas of Sunderland, Gateshead, Tyneside and Tynemouth. Venture Transport, based on the Consett area and taken over by Northern in the 1970s, also initially retained its own identity in NBC corporate style, adopting poppy red. Northern’s other subsidiary – Wakefields – was phased out as a separate company in 1969, prior to the NBC corporate identity period.
Venture’s Alexander-bodied Leyland Leopard no 295 in the standard NBC dual-purpose livery, departing Newcastle’s Marlborough Crescent bus station. Photo: Michael Mccalla.Tynemouth adopted NBC red as its main livery colour, but like the rest of Northern General, used yellow for services mainly within the urban PTE area. This is Tynemouth 2863 at North Shields on a service to Tynemouth, a former United Lodekka FLF. Photo: Michael Mccalla
All this made life much more interesting for depot staff than their NBC counterparts elsewhere, and nowhere more so than in the paintshop. Michael Mccalla was a coachpainter at Northern’s Bensham works between the 1970s and 1990s. His job was applying the company’s multiple liveries, while sticking to the rules set out in the NBC Manual. Fortunately for all of us, he also kept a photographic record of a lot of his work.
“The first vehicle I worked on and helped paint as an apprentice coachpainter at Northern Central Works, Bensham, was Sunderland District’s Leyland Leopard 346”, recalls Michael, “in an NBC-style livery but using Sunderland’s old ‘Midnight Blue’, a much darker shade than NBC’s own approved blue”.
Michael’s first vehicle: Sunderland District’s 36’ Leyland Leopard 346, freshly painted byMichael Mccalla and colleagues at Northern’s Bensham works, in 1972. Photo: Michael Mccalla.
“It looked great at the time.” says Michael, “The problems came later. The blue was a nightmare to paint over when Poppy Red and Yellow were introduced.” Along with the other Northern subsidiary companies, Sunderland and District lost its identity in January 1975, requiring the whole dark-blue fleet to be gradually repainted, though many were rebranded ‘Northern’ and stayed in blue for many years. There were also transfers to other NBC operating companies: Eastern Counties (see photo) was one of the companies faced with the tricky challenge of painting a standard livery over hard-to-cover midnight blue.
Eastern Counties bore the brunt of the challenging dark-blue-to-poppy-red repaint on the transfer of Bristol VR series 1 NGM 174G, which started life at Central SMT and was one of the vehicles involved in the complicated swaps of VRs and Lodekkas between the NBC and SBG in 1974. The bus arrived in Norwich as Eastern Counties VR319 – but not before a brief stay on Tyneside where Northern’s Michael Mccalla started to paint it into the NBC version of Sunderland’s midnight blue livery. Here it is awaiting its next repaint into poppy red at Eastern Counties’ Main Works, Cremorne Lane, Norwich. (Photo: Tim Moore’s collection)
But when they were reliveried into Northern’s standard Poppy red, or urban yellow, they were very striking on the streets of the north east. Michael was responsible for a number of the repaints, as well as painting Northern’s red Leyland Nationals into urban-area NBC yellow. “I must admit when newly painted these did look decent” Michael remembers.
Northern MK1 National 4609 in NBC Yellow livery complete with white relief. Photo: Michael Mccalla.Recently re-branded from Gateshead, and with the post-1976 NBC symbol in a white panel, Northern’s Roe-bodied Leyland Atlantean no 0191 is seen on a cross-Tyne service in Newcastle. (Photo: Michael Mccalla)
Uniquely, the yellow livery featured company identifiers in dark red. As for all operating companies, company identifiers were supplied from NBC headquarters, using the bespoke National typeface, as photographic negatives, which were enlarged and reproduced locally. These were issued with the Corporate Identity Manual, with pages including wallets to hold the negatives, along with ‘sign-out/sign-in’ sheets to keep track of them. The use of pre-prepared negatives avoided any risk of the wrong typeface being used, and avoided inconsistent letter spacing. Northern General’s copies were unusual in coming with negatives for the many different fleetnames in use – Tyneside, Tynemouth, Sunderland & District, Gateshead, Venture, and Northern itself.
From the Corporate Identity Manual itself: each operating company’s copy of the Manual included wallets for photographic negatives of the ‘National symbol’ (the double-N arrow) and the relevant local ‘company identifiers’ (the fleetnames). Photo: Matt Harrison.
Like its buses, Northern General’s coaches came in a variety of liveries, with PTE, urban and non-urban dual-purpose, and full-coach National variants. There were even some variants that shouldn’t really have happened – such as the Bristol RE in a unique PTE dual-purpose livery. Michael Mccalla recalls: “I managed to get away with painting Bristol RE 4882 into Tyne and Wear PTE livery when it should have been all-over yellow. But this is what happens when the foreman is on holiday and you’re put in charge”.
For an era when public transport on the roads came in green, red or white in most of England and Wales, Northern’s flexible take on the NBC corporate identity added some colour and variety to the streets of the north east.
Special thanks to Northern coachpainter Michael Mccalla for his help with this article, and for providing the fascinating pictures of Northern’s colourful vehicles – many of them his own handiwork.
Former Venture Alexander bodied AEC Y-Type 266 seen straight out the paintshop in NBC yellow at the High Spen depot. 266 has Northern company identifiers in red, but with the later style of red-and-blue NBC logo on a white panel, introduced from 1976. Photo: Michael Mccalla. At Heworth bus station, ECW-bodied Bristol RE no 4882, shortly after Michael Mccalla’s rogue repaint into a dual-purpose version of TWPTE’s cadmium yellow. Photo (and livery): Michael Mccalla.One of only two white National coaches carrying the Sunderland name, this is Plaxton-bodied Bristol RE no 122L, in Sunderland. Photo: Michael Mccalla.Leyland PD2 no 1763 was the only one of its type to be painted in NBC poppy red, seen here at Chester le Street depot in the early 1970. Photo: Michael MccallaVenture Transport’s Leyland National 167M, later Northern’s 4501, in NBC poppy red without white bands, in around 1972. Photo: Geoff Coxon.The NBC-blue version of Northern’s distinctive liveries has featured in preservation. Leyland Olympian 3653, seen here at an enthusiasts’ event, appears in a lighter shade than the ‘midnight blue’ used on Sunderland and Northern vehicles in the 1970s, though closer to the ‘authorised’ colour used by other NBC subsidiaries. Many former Sunderland buses were rebranded ‘Northern’ in the mid-1970s when Northern General’s sub-brands were phased out. As a relatively new bus, new to Northern in 1985, 3653 would not have worn this precise livery, with the pre-1976 monochrome double-arrow, in service – but wears it well in preservation nonetheless. Photo: Martin Isles, showbus.com
As part of its comprehensive rebranding, NBC’s corporate identity extended to what its staff wore.
The NBC Corporate Identity Manual is best known for its uniform bus and coach liveries. But it was also intended to address standardisation of a wide range of other aspects of NBC’s presentation to its customers, including clothing and uniforms.
NBCs constituent companies had started experimenting with uniforms as part of their coach branding – in this example, East Kent adopted bright orange uniforms for coach hostesses with a cut and cap reflecting fashions of the era during the late 1960s. The driver on the other hand sports a contrasting very traditional uniform.
Section 7 of the NBC Corporate Identity Manual dealt with “uniforms and related items” such as cap and jacket badges. But there is some mystery over section 7. We believe it was drafted – indeed NBC put a lot of work into uniform design – but may not have been issued: curiously the copies of the Manual we have seen omit it. We’ll be digging deeper into this over the coming months to make sure that a reissued corporate identity manual includes as much of the issued material as we can source. Please get in touch if you can help.
NBC’s constituent companies inevitably had a variety of styles, many unchanged since the 1950s. With a few exceptions – notably innovations in the coach market to reflect the speed and modernity of the emerging national motorway network – uniforms tended to be very traditional with heavy wear-resistant fabrics in black or dark blues, round peaked caps and occasionally traditional braid to indicate seniority. Coach crews often sported light-coloured overalls and matching caps. But – as with liveries – there tended to be substantial variation between local companies.
NBC’s corporate identity sought to do away with all that, and to introduce a standard look for crews and bus station staff. Crews and staff were to be the human face of the business, so their attire needed to reflect the modernity the business aimed to project. NBC and Norman Wilson’s team wanted staff to project the company’s modern image as much as the vehicles, and investigated overseas practice as well as drawing inspiration from constituent companies’ innovations in the coach market.
Bus crew uniforms saw a radical change. Adopting a much more modern look, Wilson and his team adopted a sleek modern-cut in a blue-grey serge, with a similar lightweight version for summer. The cut of the uniform for women was very similar, but with a simpler cap. In this NBC publicity shot at London’s Victoria Coach Station, models Ray Rhodes and Judy Neale show off the new look, contrasting with driver Alf Vassey, of East Kent’s Dover depot, who wears the company’s very smart traditional uniform. They pose with an East Kent AEC Regent in the new corporate colours
Out went dark colours, and in came lighter blue-grey suits with a relatively modern cut, greater comfort and incorporating larger pockets to assist with carrying paperwork. Out went the traditional round peaked caps and in came a modern, Germanic-looking octagonal cap in the same shade of blue-grey, sporting a smart metal ‘double-N’ arrow badge.
Two London Country staff pose for a publicity shoot in 1972. The uniform for men incorporated a radically different octagonal cap design, almost unseen in Britain but more common in northern mainland Europe. For women, a cleaner-cut pillbox hat was adopted.
Office and counter staff at bus stations counted among them many more women than the drivers and crews. Various uniforms were created for women over the years, typically in brighter hues of the corporate colours, with styles evolving with fashion more than the men’s uniforms.
A Bristol Omnibus Company driver wears his octagonal crew cap, during a driving demonstration for the NBC training film ‘They don’t grow on trees’, made in 1979.The women’s coach uniform came used various combinations of the corporate colours – here is an early variant in corporate blue and lined in red.
Whereas the changes in bus liveries are well documented, pictures of the changing uniforms through the NBC period are relatively few and far between. If you have any photos you’d be happy for us to use to illustrate the evolving staff attire for bus and coach crews and for bus station staff, do let us know. We’ll add any photos and stories in the coming weeks.
NBC’s corporate identity picked up on the best of its constituents’ designs – shown here, an early coach hostess uniform, similar to the East Kent National Travel version above, but in the NBC colours.While the men’s uniform changed relatively little until the 1980s, women’s uniforms were more regularly updated as styles changed. This version shows a variant of the bus station staff uniform from the early 1980s.Coach staff saw more change during the NBC period than their bus counterparts. Here we see the male and female uniforms adopted in the early 1980s for National Express drivers and crew.
Rapid roll-out of the new identity led to some odd compromises
Nearly a year passed between the introduction of the NBC corporate identity and the launch of Norman Wilson’s fully-fledged Corporate Identity Manual. Wilson had been clear-minded on the importance of consistency from the start. However NBC chairman Fred Wood saw advantages in getting staff and passengers to identify with the new uniformity of presentation and service to the public, as a way of beginning to change the culture and perception of the NBC and its subsidiaries.
NBC’s objective was to use its new corporate identify to achieve rapid and radical change in public perceptions of bus and coach travel.
Across publicity and advertising, and things like timetable leaflets, company names began to appear in Wilson’s new bespoke NBC typeface – with the words “Associated with the National Bus Company” added as a strapline. This needed to be matched by the main projection of NBC’s identity into the high streets and housing estates of England and Wales – the buses themselves.
The solution was to start applying the strikingly modern NBC logo and fleetnames ahead of making other changes. This could be done faster than waiting for a full repaint into the new colours of poppy red or leaf green with white, or even the halfway house of painting white bands over cream and black lining and using the existing base livery, for example the darker Tilling red or green. But a strange consequence was that the modern fleetnames were for a time applied in a more traditional cream colour, as part of the existing colour schemes, rather than the clean, modern white of the new corporate identity.
Hants & Dorset Lodekka KMT 608, fleet number 401, in Salisbury late in 1972. Tilling-red and cream with cream NBC fleetnames, and National Bus corporate identity advertising. The blue dot over the yellow fleet number shows that it is a Salisbury depot bus.
Hants & Dorset were quick to get into the spirit of the new corporate identity – if not its precise application. The picture below shows an attempt to match the bus to the new NBC identity shown on the bus’s advertising panel. The differences between advertising illustration and application are pretty obvious now, but probably weren’t to the casual observer, so the early brand application probably did the trick. By 1972, former Wilts & Dorset Lodekka KMR608, had been absorbed into the Hants & Dorset fleet as their no 401. It retained the Tilling red of Wilts & Dorset, which was extended over the black lining, and gained cream-coloured NBC-style fleetnames and double-N arrow to match its cream band.
A Devon General Guy Arab in Exeter Corporation green and magnolia, with NBC fleetnames in white, at Exeter bus depot in 1973.
Devon General’s main livery was red, in spite of being a subsidiary of green-liveried Western National. In 1970 it took over the buses of Exeter Corporation Transport, and once the corporate identity was initiated in 1972 this Guy Arab retained its Exeter ‘green and magnolia’ livery but gained while NBC-style Devon General fleetnames. It contrasts with Exeter vehicles in the background which Devon General had already repainted into NBC poppy red and white.
Something has gone wrong with the rebranding of Western National’s no. 1923 seen here at Weymouth in 1973. 1923 retains Tilling green livery, and though the black lining has been painted over and cream replaced with white, the NBC-style fleetnames and logo have been applied in cream.
Western National’s 1923, Lodekka UOD 477, at Weymouth in 1973.
For most of the lifetime of the corporate identity, its application was strictly policed by NBC from its London headquarters in New Street Square. The first Manual was developed during the course of 1972 and issued to local subsidiary companies in stages as Norman Wilson oversaw the development and initial roll-our, starting with the National ‘white coach’ network, followed by a new identity for local buses, and later a new standard livery for regional express ‘semi-coach’ or ‘dual purpose’ vehicles.
There were some differences in the rules in the very early days, as well as various interpretations and mishaps, mostly stamped out quickly by HQ. These included overuse of white bands where local staff felt the main blocks of unrelieved green or red gave larger buses a drab look, and attempts to replicate the cream and black lining from the traditional liveries with additional white bands, particularly on double-deck vehicles.
A more common occurrence – initially sanctioned by NBC HQ – was an ‘interim livery’ to help to accelerate the roll-out of the new identity. Buses not due for a full repaint into the new corporate colours would simply have white or cream ‘thick’ bands painted over the original cream and black waistbands, with new NBC-typeface fleetnames and logos applied over the existing darker shades of red and green. Remarkably – given the later strict policing of the new corporate colours – cream NBC symbols and fleetnames were issued by NBC and used by many operators, to match the cream waistbands of the traditional liveries.
This was stamped out later in 1972. As Norman Wilson said in the later Manual, “It is of vital importance to the overall maintenance of the National Bus Company image that colour schemes and usages are strictly followed. The use of red, per se, is not the same thing as the use of the correct red.”
Though initially approved, this half-way solution undermined the all-important consistency of the new Corporate Identity, so was frowned upon by HQ, and had largely disappeared within a year.
Eastern Counties’ Bristol MW LM944 at Ipswich in 1972 illustrates the ‘half-way’ rebrand. Its cream and black lining has been replaced with an NBC white stripe, but it retains its darker Tilling red. Photo: Michael Woolnough, Eastern Transport Collection, provided by Sydney Eade.
Sydney Eade was a conductor working at Lowestoft for Eastern Counties in 1972 when the new livery started to be rolled out, and remembers the early mixed livery attempts, as illustrated by Bristol MW LM944 at Ipswich, “just after ‘conversion’ to NBC livery by painting put the cream band and black lining in ‘fat white’. The old fleetname has vanished but the new double ‘N’ white one has not yet been employed.”
Eastern Counties Bristol RLs at Lowestoft in 1972. On the right, RL522 and RL520 were the last to be delivered from the town’s Eastern Coach Works in Tilling Red livery. RL734 is also in Tilling Red, but has faded, and has had the white band treatment. Photo: Sydney Eade.
Sydney, an active preservationist with the Eastern Transport Collection Society since its early days, remembers the arrival of the first repainted NBC red Bristol Lodekka to arrive at Lowestoft – possibly LFS86 or 87. “I got to work on it on the first day of service”, he says. “I thought it was amazingly smart and gave the bus a new life, and I had no feelings of regret that Tilling red was on the way out at the time.”
Thanks to Sydney Eade for permission to use the photos of Eastern Counties vehicles on this page.
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National Bus Company Corporate Identity Manual 