Butch Cassidy lived in Preston

Did you know Butch Cassidy was known to have a Lancashire accent? His family were from there. Imagine Robert Redford in the movie if they’d added that to the realism. A quick Google reveals that Butch was a Utah boy, and in my opinion, Lancashire is the UK’s answer to California. Just with more cosmetic surgery and cocaine.

It also has Preston Bus Garage. PGB has been something of a Holy Grail for me. Preston is an age away from my house and isn’t a destination you might happen to be near. So. I got the train to Preston. You wanna know why? Because Preston Bus Garage is magnificent and quite simply my spiritual home. There has been a 1960’s black and white photograph of this building as the wallpaper on my computer for the last ten years. Every single day I have stared longingly at it, captivated by its simplistic beauty. And finally, fiiiiiinally. I got to see it. They say you should never meet your heroes but if anything, this baby was even better than I could have ever thought. 8am on sunny Sunday morning in late September, with the warm light beginning to poke through and the early birds waiting for their buses. It could have been a Kubrick movie. Even the old homeless man in the bathroom who couldn’t work the infrared taps was lovely.

Built in 1968 to a design by Keith Ingham and Charles Wilson, this brutalist beauty was meant to invoke the feeling of air travel. If anything it should be the other way round. The second you walk in I’m straight back to childhood. The floor tiles are made of Pirelli tyres, the same tiles that adorned Heathrow when I was a kid and transports me right back to those memories. I almost wanted to shake everyones hand and tell them how lucky they are to have this space port on their doorstep.

Do you know what else Preston is famous for? It is has the longest continuous row of phone boxes in the United Kingdom. A fact I was not previously aware of. Not only did I chance upon said phone boxes, but guess who was there. Andy. Andy was there. And who’s Andy? Andy is the only man in the UK that is hired by BT to paint red phone boxes. The only one. In the whole of the UK. Only. One. And I bumped into him. Andy used to be nurse on the ICU ward, but told me this job was more fulfilling. What could be more full-filling than saving lives? Saving phone boxes. He travels the country for 8 months of the year simply painting every phone box on a ten year cycle. Hopefully this isn’t the last we hear from Andy.