Speke depot in spring, 2003. The three large windows covered both the ground and first floors. The inspectors' desk still backs onto the lower half of those windows. On the floor above, behind the Arriva sign on the right, was our canteen. To the left was the snooker room.

The building in the background to the right with the blue blind doors is the bus wash. We would stop short of it and dash through a side door into the garage to sign off.

Drunks who fell asleep on the top deck risked being rudely awoken by a drenching as guards promised that one day they'd leave an adjacent window open.

Where the capacious salmon-coloured bus shed stands in the centre background was in my day an open yard. Buses were parked against angled kerbs in herringbone fashion.

Private cars were so few in number then that they could be easily parked alongside the building on the left, marked with the 5mph sign.

It's different now, though, and a sign of the times. These cars are additional to those parked in the dedicated car park in the far background.