Dot and Bill's unusual start to married life

When Dot and Bill Russell got married, their first home was not your usual one made of bricks and mortar.

The couple from Bilbrook enjoyed their first few years together on a double decker bus in Paradise, an area just off Old Stafford Road, at Coven.

After their wedding in January 1950 the couple moved into rooms in Fallings Park, Wolverhampton.

However, once their son Jim was born they decided to get their own home.

Bill, 86, used to be a bus driver and his conductor, who was called Billy Wright, told him that a cheaper way to have your own home was to live on a bus.

Dot, 82 explains: "Bill's conductor said 'why don't you live in a bus - we do' and he told us to go down to Paradise, off the Old Stafford Road to take a look.

"When we saw Billy's home we liked it and he told us to go to Don Everalls, which was a coach company on the Bilston Road.

"We paid £50 and were told to go into a yard and take our pick, and there were loads of double decker buses."

The couple, who have three children, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, say after searching through the buses they settled on one which had a homely feel to it.

"I chose one which looked more like a house, with the stairs going straight up rather than bending around like they do on most buses," says Dot.

"The bus had to be towed to the site and, as I grew up above a furniture shop in Stafford Street, all my family turned out to watch and wave as we went past."

Bill says the bus had seats, which had to be removed, and then they set about creating a home

"There were around seven other buses on the famers site and we had a plot with a fence around it," says Bill, who ended up working at Boulton Paul in Wolverhampton for 23 years in their research department.

"We had a little wood-buring stove with two hot plates on the top and a little oven - you could see the chimney from outside the bus.

"We had a proper wooden front door and paraffin lighting but there was no bathroom - we had a tent outside with a hole in the ground for the toilet and went for washes at Wolverhampton Baths."

Dot says that downstairs they had a folding table, side-board and two easy chairs.

"Upstairs the small section at the front of the bus was Jim's room with his cot and we put Muffin the Mule wallpaper up for him," says Dot.

"My mum had a furniture shop and she gave us an iron bedstead - it was all open plan."

Bill says that as there was no running water in the bus they had to fill up a bucket of water from the farmer's tap every morning.

"In the winter you would wake up and there would be ice on the top of the bucket," he says.

"When we went to get water we would take a paraffin rag with us, put it over the tap and light it to get rid of the icycles.

"With us having Jim, we had a lot of Terry nappies which Dot used to boil one-by-one in a saucepan to clean them."

The couple, whose three children are called Jim, Sally and Tony, lived on the bus for four years and during that time Dot worked as a cook for a nearby schools campsite, owned by Staffordshire Country Council.

Dot says: "Every week a Co-op van would come to the site with food on it for you to buy, otherwise you had to go to Brewood or Coven to get supplies.

"We didn't have a chance to talk to many of the people on the site - we were all working so hard, the people in the bus next to us were teachers in Wolverhampton.

"We were still able to take holidays as we had a tandem bicycle, with a side-car for Jim, and we went to Portsmouth, Rhyl and Weston-Super-Mare staying in youth hostels.

"When we moved out we went to a house in Cotswold Road and it was very strange to not be in the bus anymore.

"We had some lovely times on the bus and if you thought about it today it was hard work, but really it was an adventure."