After many decades of ordering Leyland vehicles, from the STD to the RTL and RTW, Fleetline, National and Titan, London Transport chose the Olympian as the de facto winner of the AVE trials, ordering 260 for 1986 delivery - and then stopped ordering buses at all as the whole system began to unravel in the face of tendering. Leyland wasn't the only major bus company that was eventually driven out of business by the upheavals to British buses in the 1980s, but its loss, three years short of its centenary, was a grave blow to the industry as a whole.

As London Buses Limited tried to rally against the cheap operators from the private sector, it took small batches, and the forty Alexander-bodied Olympians delivered to the Leaside Buses subsidiary in 1992 were probably the best of them all. With powerful Cummins engines and a cheerful interior decor, they took over the 253 - or at least four-fifths of it, because its PVR at the time was 48 - at Stamford Hill garage. Clapton inherited them all when Stamford Hill closed, but capacity with the future Arriva London North led to the latter reopening once again and taking on part of the 253 once again. But in 2003 the 253 was split in half and both sections (numbered 253 and 254) lost their Ls. They were divided between the Original London Sightseeing Tour and Barking (DX) garage, with the latter transfers based mostly on the 103 - until 15 October, when the route was lost to Stagecoach East London.

Just four of the Alexander-bodied Ls were working the 103 when I visited Romford on Saturday 8th October, and here is one of them, L 324 (J324 BSH).