This thread has been an interesting read so far, especially as everyone recalls different eras. It's fortunate that I don't feel quite so old when I read another's recollections of travelling to school on front-engined Leyland Titans!
I suppose my interest in buses probably stems from my travel to and from school. When I started primary school, the morning bus was often red and grey as opposed to yellow and cream (which all the others were). I
think this was probably a Highland Scottish vehicle, most likely a Willowbrook-bodied Ford which had been pinched for a the school run in between turns on the joint Elgin - Aviemore service. The only other vehicle type that I can really remember was a Duple Viceroy coach (I knew it was one of those because I had a Dinky model) which was also probably a Ford. As for the return journey, I remember bright autumn afternoons and seeing Duple Dominant and Alexander T-type coaches waiting for us outside the school. They were Leyland Leopards, although I had no way of knowing it then, which were fairly new at the time.
After six months we moved and my new school was within walking distance of the house. While I didn't have to take the bus any more, other kids were still bussed in from the neighbouring village. The usual fare was something with an Alexander Y-type body - most likely to be a Ford, but there was probably the occasional Leopard too. One of my last memories of the Albion Vikings was seeing them drive off up the hill from the school; I remember them because they had the radiator grilles at the back and had smaller rear light clusters than the other Y-types. I also recall one particularly icy morning where one of the Fords couldn't make it up the school brae and had to reverse back before taking a run at it!
From Primary 4 onwards we were taken to the swimming pool once a week. I suppose this is when we had the most variety, and when my interest really took off. Y-type Fords and Leopards were the norm, and sometimes we'd have a Leopard/Duple Dominant. NPE44 (RRS44R) was a regular, and it would remain a regular vehicle on my journeys until I left school. At some point there must have been a rearranging of the diagrams, because after a while we started getting something different on our swimming trips: Tigers! They didn't look much different to the Dominant II Leopards that were kicking about, but I thought the sound of the TL11 was magical. I assume there was a gap between duties on the Inverness - Aberdeen service, because they all had "A" (Aberdeen) depot codes instead of "E" (Elgin) and they carried Scottish Citylink livery. Two of them actually carried "Scottish Holidays" fleetnames on the side. On a few occasions we had one of the then-new TC-types which looked very futuristic with their bonded glazing and plug doors; I recall a few of us being fascinated with how the mechanism worked. On one occasion they sent one of the Duple Goldliner bodied "London Tigers" which carried the Saltire livery and on another we were treated to the boxy, but very smooth and quiet MCW Metroliners. These coaches all had reclining seats - also a novelty to us at the time - but the teachers used to yell at us to leave them alone.
Fast forward a few years and I had to travel on the regular service bus to school. It was 1986 and while de-regulation hadn't happened yet, it was only a couple of months away. Leyland Olympians were very much the order of the day, and at peak times they could be rammed. We had a few Olympians that were allocated locally - some of the TSO-X ECW batch with semi-automatic Hydracyclic gearboxes, and a handful of the B-LSO batch with Voith transmissions. At the time some of the Aberdeen buses were being repainted from the green/cream "Grampian Scottish" livery into the new Aberdeen "Citybus" colours and a few were sent our way to speed up the process. Most went back to Aberdeen, but as a new batch of dual-door Olympians had been delivered to Aberdeen, we were left with a few. They had the somewhat jerky fully-automatic Hydracyclic transmissions. OMS910W, one of the B45 prototypes, was among them and became a permanent allocation until its departure for Clydeside. I recall seeing the little blue box of tricks in the luggage compartment under the stairs and had worked out that it must have had something to do with the transmission because of the LEDs that lit up whenever the bus changed gear.
After a while we stopped having 'deckers on the route. There was a brief period where a service called the Buchan Highlander ran from (I think) Fraserburgh or Peterhead to Inverness and the vehicle on our morning run usually went on to do that. The usual allocation was a coach-seated Leopard with either a Duple Dominant or Alexander T-type body, although occasionally we'd have one of the Y-types that had been refitted with coach seats. With that came a different group of drivers; they were in the "coast" (305 service) group who were all quite senior and many of them had no fear. There were certainly some "spirited" journeys in the mornings!
Other buses that featured on my route were P-type Leyland Tigers and the Dennis Lancets with the same body, along with a motley collection of Y-type Leopards that had been acquired from Central, Midland and Western. We also had a few National 2s that were normally used for the town service, but they'd occasionally escape onto the more rural routes.
Towards the end of my school years we were briefly visited by the ex-Highland Ailsas as they headed back to their Fife home, and the early Stagecoach days saw RRM-X and HNE-V Leopards brought up from Cumberland and Ribble respectively. Then, in my last few months of school, the J-FPS batch of Dennis Drats was introduced...