(Above photo from Showbus.com)
Following the bus’s renovation back to its 1972 Wings tour look, inside and out, current owner Tom Jennings has decided to part with the bus, by putting it up for auction with Julien’s.
As there has been some misinformation about the bus’s history and ownership floating around, this blog will endeavour to correct that, with sourced information, largely from bus enthusiasts who maintain detailed records to this day, as well as from dated photographs from those or similar sources.
You may also care to read this previous blog about the bus.
Beginnings
On Tuesday November 3rd 1953, whilst Frankie Laine was at the top of the UK charts with Hey Joe, a Bristol KSW bus, with a 5 cylinder Gardner diesel engine (5G) was registered as WNO 481.
WNO 481 would then go to its first home, along with WNOs 472 – 485. They would join the Eastern National Omnibus Company (ENOC), and receive their first livery – an all-over green.
Eastern National
During its initial time at ENOC, WNO 481 was part of its Westcliff-on-Sea, Southend based fleet, which had become part of ENOC as a consequence of bus nationalisation and as being within the area ENOC covered. That fleet was fully absorbed into ENOC by 1955. After initially being given the fleet number 4216, this was changed in July 1954 to 1428.
The bus was based in Basildon as of March 1962 and the earliest photo known of it was taken in 1963 on route 241 to Pitsea train station.
In August 1964, the bus was moved to Clacton and renumbered 2385.
Ten of the WNO buses in the fleet were then selected for an open-top conversion, which occurred in 1966. Five buses were converted at the ENOC depot in Chelmsford, the other five at Prittlewell, Southend. WNO 481 was one of the five converted at Chelmsford. Despite being converted by the same company, there were differences in the conversion at the two depots, most noticeable at the front and front sides of the upper deck.
The buses were also repainted with a cream livery with green trim and green around the engine.
Photo by Dave Catchpole, taken in 2011.
Eastern Counties
WNO 481 was sold on to Eastern Counties Omnibus Company (ECOC) of Norwich, in early 1968. Here the green was replaced with a maroon and the fleet number LKO238 was allocated to it.
ECOC served Suffolk and Norfolk and WNO 481 was allocated to the 248 service route serving the Felixstowe sea front, the town centre and the port. The bus had its depot in Felixstowe but would be moth balled at the Great Yarmouth depot during the winter, although it did also work there as a spare bus around 1970 and was also available to hire.
The bus was recorded as “Out of service” in May 1971 (although the image above, taken in June, suggests that date may not be quite right, or that this was the exception) and was purchased in July by well-known bus and parts dealer, Ben Jordan, of Coltishall, in Norfolk. He sold it in December 1971 to Halls Coaches of Hounslow.
Halls Coaches/Silverline Tours/Valliant Silverline – and the Wings Tour
Halls had, in 1969, acquired the company Valliant Cronshaw, which had become its “Valliant Silverline” fleet.
When Halls acquired WNO 481 from Ben Jordan in 1971, it was to this fleet that that the bus went, and to the Silverline depot in Uxbridge.
Here, it was given a red and silver-grey livery, with the wording in all caps, on the left side of the bus, over two lines:
THIS VEHICLE IS OWNED AND OPERATED BY
VALLIANT SILVERLINE
A third line with a phone number to call to hire the vehicle was also present but was not fully captured on film (although that information can be seen on the Valliant bus next to it).
The vehicle was photographed at Epsom Races, in its new livery, in June 1972.
In July 1972, Paul McCartney and Wings would begin a European tour, starting in the south of France. McCartney had the idea of touring using a double-decker bus, which whilst one of his promoters, John Morris, was not keen on, his partner, Tom Salter thought was a great idea. He arranged the hire of a tour bus from Halls, along with a customised paint job, maintenance and two drivers.
The majority of the work was performed by Salter, Geoffrey Cleghorn, Neil Dean and Charlie Smith, as recollected by Neil’s wife, who also assisted. It was Neil Dean who also designed the Wings “W” logo that appeared for the first time as a painted wooden attachment to the rear of the bus.
After the tour, the bus returned to Halls/Silverline at Uxbridge. It was last seen in its original Wings livery in 1973 at a bus rally held at Brunel University. The bus was photographed several times there, from which it was clear that the bus’s prior layout and seating had been reinstalled.
Tricentrol
Halls and its operations were acquired by Luton based Tricentrol in August 1973. The first few years of the bus under this ownership appear to have been quiet, with no apparent sightings, but it was relocated to Dunstable c 1975 and given a mustard gold livery. After this, the bus was sighted numerous times between 1976 – 1980, at Epsom (yet again), Thorpe Park and on a rally to Volendam, near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, as well as in other locations. The bus was recorded as being out of service with Tricentrol in 1980.
Roger White/White’s Coaches
Tricentrol was looking to part with its older vehicles and WNO 481 was either going to be sold or scrapped, come 1982.
Coach operator, Roger White, of White’s Coaches, St Albans, came looking through the Tricentrol bus stock looking for a bargain. After spotting the European destinations on WNO 481, he realised what he had found and paid Tricentrol £3000 for the bus. This may well have saved the bus from the scrap yard.
It is believed that Mr White re-applied the Wings livery shortly after obtaining the bus. Whilst there is no photographic evidence of this (it seems Mr White’s collection had photos from 1972 and after 1989, but not from 1982 – 1989), documents from Mr White’s family show that he did try and sell the vehicle to an American buyer in 1984, based on the fact that it was the Wings tour bus. The sale evidently failed to occur, but it seems logical that the Wings livery had been re-applied to enable such a sale.
In 1989, Mr White, with the assistance of Godfrey Davis of St Albans (in exchange for banner advertising on the side of the bus), painted the bus red and white for a BAFTA film rally to Cannes. The vehicle took part as a management or relief vehicle, as the rally was primarily for cars in British films. The bus was also photographed at the Southend Bus Rally that year, in this livery.
In 1990, a second BAFTA rally took place from London – Cardiff – Edinburgh. Whilst believed to have only been involved in the Cardiff leg, the bus may have made it to Scotland, as it was photographed with Princess Anne in the foreground. BAFTA News stated prior to the event that , “HRH The Princess Royal, who is President of both the Save the Children Fund and BAFTA will attend the Rally during one of its stages in Scotland, where the last part of the route will take in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh.” At the time of writing, I have not been able to confirm if this was the actuality or not.
The bus had its Wings livery restored prior to a Dutch Beatles event in April 1993, as well as appearing in this livery in Liverpool and London, before being put up for sale with Sotheby’s on 29 July 1993. Valued at the time as being worth £25,000 – £30,000, the bus however failed to sell at auction.
Tenerife
The ongoing mystery as to how the bus ended up in Tenerife can now be answered.
After failing to sell the bus at auction, Roger White came into contact with a private buyer who purchased the vehicle in a part-exchange. It was not apparently known to Mr White who exactly he was dealing with at the time, but the man’s name was John Palmer.
John Palmer was infamously tried at the Old Bailey in 1987 for knowingly melting down and selling the gold stolen in 1983 from the Brink’s-Mat robbery at Heathrow, from where £26 million (its value then) of gold bullion was stolen. Palmer acknowledged that he melted the gold but claimed he was unaware of where the gold had come from and that he was not involved in the robbery. Whether the jury believed him, or perhaps took the view that the evidence against him was too weak for a guilty verdict, he was acquitted.
For this he was given the nickname, “Goldfinger”.
Palmer had initially fled to Tenerife in 1985 to avoid arrest on charges to do with his business and Brinks-Mat, but after Spain and the UK agreed an extradition treaty, he tried to go to Brazil. However, his visa has expired, so he was forced back to the UK and was arrested.
After being acquitted in 1987, he returned to Tenerife where he had been setting up a Timeshare business.
Whilst it is understood that Roger White dealt directly with John Palmer, it is unclear whether or not Palmer would or did actually own the vehicle on paper, or whether it was owned by one of his businesses, or was in the name of an acquaintance or family member.
What is known is that in the 1990s, after being transported to Tenerife, the vehicle was parked outside of a venue that Palmer was associated with. It was even featured on a Tenerife postcard, as the venue was very near the Playa de la Pinta beach of Costa Adeje.
(EDIT This location in the postcard is not the rock café that Palmer owned, but a nearby club that Palmer is believed to have been linked to, although to date the exact nature of his connection to this venue has not been established beyond hearsay – bar the fact that the bus was pictured parked there, as well as outside the rock café.)
In 2000, whilst Palmer was on trial (or re-trial) again in the UK, this time for fraud, WNO 481 was pictured parked behind a wire fence in La Caleta, 5-6km north of where it had been previously (as above).
It has been reported by numerous sources that the bus being parked where it was in Costa Adeje, had been problematic, due to it obscuring views, blocking the light and being hemmed in by other vehicles. This may explain why the bus was moved. However, in 2002, after Palmer’s conviction, the bus was moved again.
The bus was left to become derelict at the bottom of a ravine in Costa Adeje, in-between apartment complexes, where it could be found on Google maps up to 2017. Its historical location is still available on there at the time of writing.
Palmer was convicted of a massive timeshare fraud in 2001, where he reportedly swindled 20,000 people out of £30 million. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, serving about four.
Palmer was shot and murdered outside his Essex home in 2015.
WNO 481 was obtained from Palmer, or his family, or associates, by its next owner, Justin James, circa 2009.
Justin James
From the BBC, who spoke to Mr James in 2019:
After the [1972] tour, it eventually ended up at outside a rock cafe in Tenerife before being moved to the cafe owner’s garden. “I went to visit them about 10 years ago and saw this thing rotting away in his back garden,” current owner Justin James told BBC News. “I said, ‘I want it.’
“I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, I just thought that it should not be rotting away on the wastelands of Tenerife. It took eight years to bring it back (to Oxfordshire) because it was in such a difficult part to get to, how it was buried in this field. We got cranes and I managed to get it back.”
Justin James transported WNO 481 back to England in late 2017, tweeting to Paul McCartney and to Radio Jammor in December 2017, that he had it, following Paul McCartney’s tweet enquiring about it, and my finding the link to the Arms Around the Child Charity, which Justin James was a trustee of.
From this information, it would seem that Mr James purchased, or agreed to purchase the vehicle, circa 2009.
In that interview, which occurred due to Mr James putting the vehicle up for auction in 2019, he stated, “I reckon someone could get that engine going, but I’m not that person unfortunately”.
Mr James put the vehicle up for auction with Omega Auctions in Merseyside, with an estimated value of £15,000-£25,000, however the vehicle did not sell.
Tom Jennings
After the bus failed to sell, Justin James sold the vehicle in a private, undisclosed transaction to Tom Jennings.
Mr Jennings wanted to bring the vehicle back to how it was in 1972. He placed it into the care of David Hoare of Chepstow Classic Buses in order to achieve this.
With Covid intervening, the bus was finally restored by November 2022 and was displayed at The 2022 Classic Motor Show at The NEC.
Mr Jennings has now put the vehicle up for sale with Julien’s auctions, with a valuation of $200,000 – $300,000. The auction is due to take place on 16 November, 2023.
Final Words
It has been an all-too easily made assumption that WNO 481 was owned, “bought” or “purchased” by Paul McCartney for the 1972 tour, that owners and sellers have had a tendency to play-up, or let go without correction. I can categorically state that this was not so. The bus never left the ownership of Halls Coaches t/a Silverline Tours for the tour, and the bus was returned to them afterwards.
The Wings tour programme confirms this.
There has also been repeated attempts to link the 1972 bus and tour with the subsequent Live and Let Die song and film, with initial suggestions that the song may have been written on the bus. Such claims have been watered down, in light of Paul McCartney biographies showing this to be false, and that this wasn’t even on his radar during the tour, although other tenuous attempts to link them still exist.
Obviously, McCartney and the band went on to write and record the song for the movie, but that is where the linkage to the Wings Bus should start and end. The bus and the tour has as much to do with Live and Let Die as it does Ebony and Ivory or The Frog Chorus.
As it turns out, due to the Tenerife ownership, the bus has more of a link to another Bond film!
WNO 481, and its history, does not need any embellishment. The true and actual story is extraordinary enough. It is the ‘Black Beauty‘ of the bus world.
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