The Bus Went to the Cinema

The bus that went to the cinema, or almost, as can be seen from the picture (Electric Palace in the Landgate is the building just beyond the bus with the coloured electric light bulbs in the shape of an arch). It was an East Kent converted charabanc on the Camber Rye Harbour service.

The East Kent Bus incident at Landgate
The East Kent Bus incident at Landgate

These pictures, loaned by Clifford Bloomfield were taken by his father, George, who worked for East Kent. The picture below shows how a large strip of brown paper was stuck over the East Kent insignia to prevent ‘bad publicity.’

Roland Jempson, who wrote an article about the incident, contacted Nicholas King of the M & D and East Kent Bus Club (who provided most of the pictures), to ascertain the date of the incident. Mr. King replied that the date could have only be 1933 or 1934. Until 1933 FN 4336 had a charabanc body, and the chassis was only fitted with a twenty seat bus body at the very end of its career.

Edward George Bloomfield worked for East Kent as a mechanic for many years, a copy of his long service, 25 years, certificate is shown here.

The driver of FN 4336 was ribbed throughout the rest of his working life about the mishap

Rye’s Own October 2014