A former Plaxton’s worker had an extra special holiday highlight on a recent trip to Malta – a bus journey on a vehicle he had fitted out 45 years ago, Susan Stephenson reported in the Scarborough Evening News.

Dave Feasby, of Weydale Avenue, Scarborough, said he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw around 20 old Plaxton buses at the bus terminus in Valletta.

But the 65-year-old was even more surprised when he realised he had worked on one of the buses during his apprenticeship at the coachbuilders in the early 1960s.

Mr Feasby, who runs the Taxicall service in Scarborough, said: “I couldn’t believe it – I flipped up the driver’s seat and my clocking-on number 145 was underneath.

“It wasn’t in bad nick actually! I felt really proud of it, as I made it 45 years ago and it’s still going strong. It certainly brought back a few memories.”

The bus was the one Mr Feasby needed to take to get back to the harbour and rejoin the cruise liner MSC Splendida for the rest of his trip. He started as an apprentice upholsterer at Plaxton’s in 1960 and on this particular model his job was to make driver’s seats for the entire run.

Mr Feasby was at Plaxton’s for six years and then moved to Duple’s coachbuilders in Blackpool, where he worked for three years.

He then worked in civil engineering and later became a taxi driver, which he has been for the past 10 years. Mr Feasby said: “It was my first trip to Malta and there were some really old buses there, but it’s nice to know there’s still some of them about.”