Enthusiasts derided them as bread vans, but the minibus filled an important short-term role in London's bus history. The idea was first floated in 1972 with the innovative Dial-A-Bus service in Hampstead Garden Suburb, which developed into today's route H2, but in the red bus area small buses grew gradually bigger and the early Ford Transits soon gave way to Bristol LHSs, then the longer LH and eventually to the full-size Leyland National. However, the mid-1980s brought a new role for van-derived buses, which were small enough to penetrate narrow housing estates and did so to some success. Unfortunately, the planners took it too far by mass-converting many totally inappropriate routes to minibus operation, not realising until too late that the vehicles weren't up to it and the passengers didn't like being forced to stand. Routes like the 28, 31, the Wembley corridor routes 224 and 226, the Peckham-oriented P11 and the infamous E-Line network in Ealing all suffered a decade of shakes and rattles until the buses couldn't take it any more and were replaced, sometimes twice over in the case of the 28 and 31. Many of their original routes have since reverted to double-deckers.

The idea, of course, was that these buses didn't need as much specialised skill to operate, and thus helped drive costs down so that both LBL and its burgeoning independent competitors could submit rock-bottom tenders. In my personal experience, a lot of these 'Hoppa' routes, as they were referred to by LBL in a nickname that didn't stick, seemed to be driven by kids, with the aggression you'd expect.

I've often wondered how it is that a company like Mercedes, which has built its reputation on prestige cars, should have built such rotten buses - the 811D was a pile of junk, only rivalled by the truly loathsome Renault 75. Still, the two chassis, which formed the majority of minibus purchases during their era, provided work for bodybuilders unable to construct double-deck bodies due to the lack of demand after deregulation, and enabled both Alexander to stay afloat and the likes of Optare and Wright to develop their design flair. Another constructor kept busy at the time was Plaxton, who took over from Reeve Burgess the design of the Beaver body on Mercedes 709D and 811D chassis. Travel London 56 (P456 MLE), the dedicated route H21 bus, was one of the former, shorter chassis, and originated with Capital Logistics. It moved on to Tellings-Golden Miller, whose livery it is seen in despite the subsequent sale of that company to Travel London. The H21, at an hourly frequency on Mondays to Fridays only, and finishing at 2:30 at that, was never really going to last, and I used a day off to catch this shot at the Sunbury Tesco terminus on Thursday 27th October.