EVEN in a black and white photograph, older readers will be able to tell you that this bus would have been painted orange, green and cream. It's an old Glasgow Corporation bus in 1952 when the Corpy simply fitted a snow plough on the front of old buses and sent them off first thing in the morning to clear the bus routes of snow.

None of your fancy gritters then with flashing lights and grit being thrown on the road.

Mind you, we did have an archive picture a few weeks ago of a Corporation bus crashing through a Govan house's front room in the snow so perhaps this makeshift snow clearing was not as effective as they would like to think.

As you can see, buses in the early fifties still had the open door at the back so that folk could jump on and off when they liked. This was a good thing if you were late for your bus and could run and catch up with it. None of the present day drivers staring stonily ahead the moment it pulls away from a stop leaving you silently pleading for them to reopen the door.

On the other hand the number of folk jumping off in front of other vehicles or simply sprawling on the road as they had misjudged the speed of their bus was not a good thing.

The other thing that older readers can tell you is that the general manager of Glasgow Corporation Transport was ERL Fitzpayne. We know that because his name was painted in black letters on the sides of all buses. He must have been in that job for decades as the name never altered.

It is only now, with the help of my assistant Mr Google, that I can tell you his name was Eric. But he will always be ERL to us old bus users.

HE looks as charming and elegant as ever in this photograph. This is Joe Loss, leader of the Joe Loss Orchestra, and one of the most successful acts of the big band era. Here he is at Glasgow's Plaza Ballroom signing autographs for his fans.

His signature tune was In the Mood which he normally began the night with as couples poured on to the dancefloor. Apart from the Plaza, Green's Playhouse was also the dance hall which he liked to visit in Glasgow.

Joe died in 1990 but the band, I believe, still plays on.

IS it just me, or do these kids on a clean-up at the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1988 not look as enthusiastic as the photographer had hoped? These are pupils from Temple Primary collecting litter on the canal near their school in Glasgow to make it a safer environment for the three cygnets of these nesting swans. The children has nicknamed the swans Bonnie and Clyde.

It looks as though they are carrying out their litter-picking at a snail's pace, presumably to maximise their time out of school. So smart kids after all.

The school called it environmental studies in case parents objected to their kids being used as unpaid cleaners.