Nostalgia: Tickets please and mind the step

Thanks to a £1.5 million grant, 20 new eco-friendly single deckers are to be added to the fleet of Lothian Buses.

The company already has 15 hybrid double deckers, and with engine modifications to other vehicles, more than half of its 650-strong fleet now uses the latest carbon-reducing technology.

While the technology may be the future of bus travel, it’s a far cry from the old-fashioned buses that once served Edinburgh passengers.

In the 1960s, there weren’t even any female bus drivers – it wasn’t until 1970 that two Edinburgh conductresses started training to become bus drivers. Mrs Georgina Thompson, 33, of Lochend Gardens, and Mrs Jessie Jeffrey, 48, of Jane Street in Leith, set the precedent.

Though having female bus drivers might have seemed unheard of back in those days, having bus conductors seems equally as strange to modern passengers.

In 1981, Charlie Page hung up his hat as he became one of the last conductors on a Lothian Regional Transport bus.

In March that year, one-man buses were rolled out completely and Mr Page, 61, and his colleagues made their final trips as bus conductors. Mr Page previously worked as a conductor on the trams in Leith,

As well as the roll-out of the one-man buses, the 1980s also saw “the bus wars” in the Capital.

Lothian Regional Transport buses became embroiled in a fight with rival company Guide Friday.

The rivals quickly gained popularity, running their own tours twice as frequently as their competitors, resulting in full-blown price wars.