WE’RE used to petitions demanding bus services be saved, but 52 years ago people in one Swindon neighbourhood campaigned to keep them away.

On Thursday, June 13, 1963, we wrote: “Parents at Walcot want Swindon Corporation to stop sending buses into the centre of the estate.

“’Let the buses stop on the outskirts,’ they say. ‘Marlowe Avenue or Queen’s Drive is near enough – we’d rather walk for the bus than see our children killed or injured.’

“The parents concerned live in Lennox Drive and Raleigh Avenue. Where before the buses used to stop in Somerville Road, they now go up to Raleigh Avenue, around Douglas Road into Lennox Drive.

“The parents claim these roads are too narrow for the safety of the toddlers who play out in the streets.

“Most of the parents take a realistic view. They are now asking the Corporation to provide traffic wardens to look after the children, or to have the buses re-routed to some other quiet street so that the worry will be imposed on a different set of parents.”

As difficult as it is to believe now, in those days only about a fifth of British households had a car, and car ownership was still very much associated with relative affluence.

Many British streets now lined with parked cars had few or none in 1963, and many children played in the roads near their houses. They were unused to traffic and traffic was mostly unused to them.

The petition to the Corporation was started by 26-year-old Mary Wheeler of Lennox Drive.

Her three children, Roger, Allen and Denise, were aged six, five and two.

Mrs Wheeler said: “I’m always asked to write the letters around here because I used to be a shorthand typist.

“I did it because I am so worried about the buses using these streets. There are so many little kiddies here.

“If the buses didn’t come into the estate we wouldn’t worry. We could always walk to the bus stop.

“In this weather it’s impossible to keep the children in the garden – they just climb over the gate.”

Another mum, 34-year-old Lena Britnell of Marlowe Avenue, said: “People might argue that our children shouldn’t play in the streets and they’re quite right – they shouldn’t. But nevertheless they do.

“It is better to be practical and accept this fact.

“No matter how hard one tries to keep children in the garden, they just won’t stay.

“They want to be out in the street, playing with their friends or riding their tricycles along the pavement.”