Take a trip to the Manchester Museum of Transport on the bus that Morrissey rode
Time is a recurring theme of EOM especially its effect on the changing face of the city. What we see around us today is only a veneer, a superficial impression that’s often misleading. To understand the true character of the city we need to dig deeper.
One of the ways we can do this is to visit museums, and one of the best in Manchester is the Museum of Transporl. They have a large collection of buses, trams and transport memorabilia. At events and open days you can ride ride on buses whose colours and designs were once a familiar sight in Manchester.
Unlike traditional museum exhibits under glass, these ones you can get on and go for a ride in. It’s like stepping into a time machine. You are experiencing a piece of daily life from past times.
And the ‘Mancunian’ bus that ferried people between the city centre and the Museum on their first event of spring 2006 has a special distinction: In the early 70s, Morrissey would have taken a bus like this one from his home in Stretford to the city centre. I remember they ran on the 263 route to town from Altrincham and Stretford. I often took it myself, though I don’t remember ever seeing Morrissey!
The Museum of Transport is located on Boyle Street, Cheetham Hill, to the rear of the Queens Road bus depot. It’s the biggest and possibly the best bus museum in the UK and definitely a great place to visit.