Skegness Magazine

News article review and historical research:

This story illustrates a valuable use of local newspapers. A topical story is published in the local newspaper which sparks a reader’s memories. The Skegness News covered a story about the “Penny all the Way” bus service which began in 1989. This in itself is a record of the times. Reading the story, Mrs Walker was prompted to send in an old picture of the original service bus, and what’s more, she recalled an old song about Skegness, resulting in the news article being of triple use in our historical research.

Source: Skegness News 8th March 1989
Photo: supplied by Ethel Walker

The news that a 1989 equivalent of the Penny All The Way bus service is to start running along Skegness seafront this summer has intrigued Mrs Ethel Walker of Queens Road in the town.
She has provided us with an original photograph recalling the original service back in the 1920s and 1930s. Her father, Fred Davison, was a conductor.
Mrs Walker also has what may well be one of the only surviving copies of the words and music for A Penny All The Way – A Song of Skegness.
This is the first verse:

“Now take a tip from me,
Go to Skeggy by the sea,
Where they’re happy, gay and free,
They just want to shout with glee,
On Lumley Road you’ll find,
Pretty shops of every kind,
So when you’re going to see the sea,
Sing this little song with me.”

Photo above: All set to leave from the Clock Tower – the original Penny All The Way service. On the far right is Fred Davison, the conductor.

The seafront bus service is set to be revived this summer thanks to initiatives by Mick Hammond of Hammond’s Amusements, and the town’s mayor, Coun Harold Fainlight.
Incidentally, Mrs Walker is a friend of both Coun Fainlight and Coun Ken Holland.
She has happy memories of the times as a teenager when all three of them were part of a group which used to have a lot of fun together.