This is short and sweet, nostalgic and nothing if not poignant, recalling a bus ride taken half a century ago on a No.16 double-decker.

Much as I loathe people banging on about how everything was better in the old days, there’s something about this that… Works. I guess it’s the authenticity of the reminiscence.

It’s created by a musician, songwriter, producer and music blogger from South London called Platinum Mind aka Del Osei-Owusu. But the voice (with a touch of Pam Ayres) is that of Marina Florance, a singer songwriter with a love for storytelling and poetry.

The pair first came together when they met as moderators for Tom Robinson’s music blog Fresh On The Net and began making music together in 2020 when Del was looking for a vocalist for a track called Live Life Lovin’.

“I originally played around with a guitar idea and thought it would be something that Marina would find a lot of fun so I sent her the bare bones of the idea and she said she wanted to do something different to what we’ve done previously,” says Del.

“Being a Londoner she decided to approach it with spoken word, and told a story of a bus ride she used to take in London in 1974. This is quite an important year as my mum moved to the UK then too and has memories of it. Marina wouldn’t have known that but it felt like a meta moment for me.”

Musically it’s a gentle harmonic melody, Del’s keyboards, drums, synths and guitar twinkling and gently moving the track along, subtly complementing the lyrics and Marina’s own guitar, synths and bass.