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Yesterday, First Group celebrated its 20th anniversary. A nice media stunt and a good excuse for a party, given that it’s Britain’s biggest transport operator and that its bus side if nothing else is holding up in the eye of the recessionary storm.

Except First isn’t really 20 years old at all. Or so we reckon.

OK, accuse us of nit picking. It was First’s immediate antecedent that was formed 20 years ago, following Grampian Regional Transport £5mil management-led employee buyout. GRT itself dates back to the Scottish local government reorganisation of 1975 and before that to Aberdeen Corporation (probably traceable to the turn of the 20th century).

First Bus was something else altogether. It came along later, in 1995. This was the time of the merger of Badgerline with the by now renamed GRT Group. Then, Badgerline’s share of the vehicle pool was by far the higher, at about 70 per cent. At the time of the merger, First Bus was second to Stagecoach.

It was in November *1997* (at least according to my records) that First Bus became First Group and it was at this point that First announced a corporate livery—initially for new vehicles only. Since 1996, there'd been a simple corporate fleetname upon existing liveries.

First has a lot to crow about, whether that’s after 100, 34, 20, 14, or 12 years. But it’s had its share of disappointments, too. There’s not been a universal acceptance of its corporate livery among enthusiasts, for example. While First might say ‘so what?’, enthusiasts tend to be polarised between the highly supportive and—sometimes in First’s case—the highly critical. Throughout its history, First has needed sympathetic friends to help defend its corner publicly. Who better than an enthusiast? Hard times have included protests over high fares and poor service; and the number of official public inquiries it’s had to face. And, of course, in spite undoubtedly true statements about First's strength being its employees, it’s seen a particularly high turnover in management.

While First openly looks towards its second 20 years, who knows what change may befall it and the other Big Five players in the coming months or years...