Promotional Leaflet
While I was driving GCT 113 'home' along the motorway on 24 August, at a steady speed of 40mph, one of the many things running through my mind was how I would go about recreating times past during the process of restoring a former GCT livery to the exterior and how I would make subtle changes to the interior, to reflect an ambience of the period I aim to restore the bus to.
A timetable case had been present on GCT 113 certainly from the mid-1980s, and one continues to remain in situ. Over our expensive Greggs on the top deck at a service station, I spoke with my comrade about a promotional leaflet and if one were to be produced, what form should it take? How much information should it contain? When should it be produced? How many copies should I go for?
It then struck me that perhaps the best form for the promotional leaflet to take would be as a timetable of the period into which GCT 113 will be restored and repainted. I've made no secret of the fact that I don't really recall the blue and cream era (the livery in which GCT 113 was delivered back in December 1976) and while the caramel and cream livery was certainly more recognisable to me, it is the orange and white that is most familiar and it is from this era that I tentatively started taking photos of the GCT fleet from Grimsby's then-new Riverhead Bus Station.
I'm fairly confident that I have every single timetable and publicity leaflet produced by GCT from 1988 until the late-1990s, and so I developed a plan to ask my friends at the Grimsby Print & Copy Centre, who do such a great job with the production of the LEYTR six times a year, if they could 'pimp' a timetable from my collection and develop it to resemble a promotional leaflet while still retaining its overall timetable look.
This they did and I've just signed off the final proof for its first production run.
The front side shows GCT 113's fleet number as the route and the meandering orange line has significant dates in the bus's history alongside, as if they were road or street names. The route summary at the top is the bus's technical details and the date of the timetable's operation at the bottom is, naturally, the date GCT 113 first entered service.
I'm really pleased to see how it's turned out, and it yet confirms one of the many reasons why enthusiasts collect a 'bit of bumf' as you'll never know when it will come in handy - none more so than today!
The rear of the promotional leaflet is mainly text, which goes into more detail about the bus and its history while at Grimsby (pre-July 2005) and there's even a handwritten drawing of it that I discovered was on a Stagecoach timetable for Service 17 during the mid-1990s. The best place to come for detailed information of GCT 113 is, of course, this website, though I firmly believe there is still a place for printed information that you can physically take with you and even keep as a reference or even as a souvenir.
The promotional leaflet will be in the timetable case on GCT 113 (at the bottom of the stairs) and will be available for passengers to take from the next rally she attends - the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society's Running Day at the Lincolnshire Road Transport Museum on Sunday 5 November - weather permitting!