I’m afraid I can not date this ticket but I do not think it was long after the war by the advertisement on the reverse. It must be dated before 1950 because it was then that they gave up the Bell Punch system for the more modern Ultimate system. In 1967 they introduced the Almex ticket system on their new one man operated vehicles. This ticket was printed by Hunt Hucknall Rd, Nottingham.

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Interesting to note that Luton bought their tickets from Nottingham. The full title of the firm was Hunt & Colleys. They also supplied Nottingham City Transport’s "Ultimate" tickets – although other printers also appeared – "Oller Ltd. London" being one that sticks in my memory. An uncle who worked for the Ministry of Labour told me that he had occasion to send certain Ministry of Labour forms to Hunt & Colleys. One of the questions asked for "main and subsidiary businesses of the company". The managing director replied that the main business was "Filling in ****** silly government forms."

Stephen Ford

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I was with Hunt & Colleys, Nottingham from leaving school in late 1949. I subsequently became printing foreman but before that, an operator of an Ultimate ticket printing machine. Each machine carried 40 numbering machines which needed keeping checking for errors all the time. We produced one million tickets from each machine daily (we had three) and printed for Luton and Nottingham, but also for Gateshead, Newcastle, Bristol, Bath, Burnley and Wolverhampton. Some were still using Bell Punch tickets, which we also produced on four machines. We supplied the paper rolls for TIM machines to other transport undertakings.

Dennis Lewin