When I was small in the Fifties Manchester was a wonderfully atmospheric city littered with bomb sites festooned with blackberries. My grandfather's flat overlooked Alexandra Park and I loved to see the red and cream 80 and 88 buses trundle passed. As a treat after feeding the ducks I used to be taken through the park to see more buses parked in Princess Road Garage nearby. The rows of mostly Daimler half-cab double-deckers are long gone but the fleet inside now owned by Stagecoach still fills me with nostalgia for a time when for me all Manchester buses were magic buses..