(28 Nov 2014, 9:44 pm)MarcTheA4 wrote To be honest, the reason 4852 (1998 - 2014) was my favourite bus was because I always remember when my grandad used to magically make the bus stop with his hand, he'd tell me to go and sit down while he put his card on the reader, he would make a note of the fleet number and reg and write it down. I suppose it was just one of those things he did for the sake of it.

Anyway, when my interest got serious a few years back, he told me he used to write down the fleet numbers of the buses we rode together in a little diary. He found it about a week later, and we had a good look through it.

Believe it or not, we rode 4852 over 150 times during those few years we spent together when I was little! A few honourable mentions ought to go to 4855, with 90-odd runs, and 4905, with about 75 runs. The rest were very random, but mostly the remainder of the vehicles associated with the Lime. That was just the 778, though.

We used to get a service back up which was normally a DAF. He made notes of all of these too, and we had 4864 about 70-odd times. It was always random though - although mainly a DAF, we would sometimes get a Delta or a National, the latter being very rare, and once or twice I saw a Lynx!

My grandad had been doing this well before I was born (2000), and the famous 4710 was noted down about 40-odd times!

It's one of my most prized possessions; that little notebook! It's one of the only things I can remember him by, a little leather miner's association diary with a bunch of numbers written in it. He would be 80 today.

To pick a few bits from that, maybes your granddad recorded it, not only as a hobby, but doing it for you, so that when got older you could look back and see it as a record of memories with him, so that you could look at those pages and recall your happiest memories together

(28 Nov 2014, 9:52 pm)MarcTheA4 wrote I've got to admit, I take my parents for granted.

They don't mind me going out on Saturdays to do whatever I like, and they would do anything for me. I've gotta admit, this year's Christmas List is tiny, though!

In hindsight, I never really took my grandad seriously enough. I'll always remember waking up on that Monday morning, going to school, coming home, and being told he hadn't woken up that morning. It's something you never forget.

During the summer, when we were tidying out his house, I found that little diary, and kept it, otherwise it would have been chucked. The little thing tells me so much, and I've got so many memories as I flick through it, always running to the back seats and sitting in the middle when he wanted to sit and chat to his friends in the reserved seats!

What I would do for a 5 minute conversation with him!

We all take our parents for granted, anyone who says they dont is a liar, we always have and always will.

When my granddad was alive, I never appreciated them, as I had been in a constant battle with my nana, I thought they were idiots for putting so much money into my education, probably somewhere close to 20 large from '91 to '95, and they hated the fact I went into Care, she could not understand why I was there, I used to accuse her of reverse snobbery, claiming to be working class while attempting achieve her goals through me, did not work of course...I was lucky in the fact me and her called a truce in September 2002, she died 2 days later.

I was close to my granddad after we lost my nan, we put a digital set top box in the house for him and most days on my way home from College I would go round to see him, I hold onto the silliest little memories, I would ring him knowing that when I got there, the kettle would be boiled, the biscuits would be out, and we would sit down and watch UKTV History, talk about the war, talk about his time in the RAF and his time in the Met Police, talk about football...He was the most intelligent person I have ever known, he is only person I know who was never religious to read the Bible, when I became a born again Christian I was advised to read the bible in small chunks, he read it from Genesis to Revelation...He also had a Mormon Bible, stuff from Jehovahs Witnesses, and possibly even looked through the Qu'ran and Torah ...

Like you, I would give anything for another 5 minutes, I was probably no more than 50 feet from him when he died, he was in a side ward in Sunderland Royal, I was in the doctors office next door, I say he knew what was happening and sent me out on purpose to protect me, and when someone came outside to get me, put it this way, I would have beat Usain Bolt over the 150-200 metres

Enough of the morbid talk now, he was one of the funniest people I know and his opinions were great, some of his craic was great.

My nan wanted to go see Titanic at the Cinema, she asked if he fancied it, he simply said 'Dont need to I will tell you what happens...The Ship sinks' that was the end of that
At his best mates 50th Birthday, there was a karaoke on, I got up to sing, they left the room thinking I would heap shame on the family, when infact I got the best reception of the night, later on that night he was that drunk my nan made him sleep in a chair at the bottom of the stairs, if he could not manage it on his own, then he had to suffer...

He would always remind me '2 guarantees in David...Death and Taxes'

He was a cantankerous old sod, morbid and a borderline alcoholic before he died, he would send me or my mam out for at least 3 bottles of Scotch a week, and we never went to the same shop more than once in a week, we didnt want people thinking me and my mother were alcoholics, I was already on the road to alcoholism and drug addiction...

But yeah, he was a good bloke and without him, I would not be as intelligent as I am

Anyway, essay over Sir