(20 Aug 2013, 6:31 pm)Andreos1 wrote I/we were the same when I lived in Birtley or with friends when I moved from the place.
We would walk half a mile to get a 183, rather than quarter of a mile to get a 26 and change at Gateshead.
Mind I'm sure part of it was so we could sit upstairs at the front as it went down Whitehall Road, in mock panic incase the brakes failed and then moan as it went into the little stop at the flats at Teams.
It was the same coming back too. We would hang about outside the old pictures, just to get that back.
I know one set of Grandparents who lived on Barley Mow were the same if they went. The 26 stopped at the back of the house and ran twice an hour as well as the 721 & 727, the 183 stopped at the front, but it was always the 183 there and the 183 back.
The "game" I used to play with my Dad whenver I got the 183 when I was a kid was to guess which way the driver would go between the little bus stop at the Teams and the MetroCentre. Between the two points the bus ran direct, so it was up to the driver as to the route he chose.
The 183 got re-routed (I think in the late 90s or thereabouts) so that it actually served Barley Mow Estate rather than Vigo Lane and Durham Road.