LINKS TO OTHER RELATED SITES

John Pitfield tells the History of Bere Regis in Pictures - a fascinating gallery of images of this Dorset village in days gone by.

This site tells the story of an American lady's holiday in Evershot, when Joanne Paul rode some of the Country Buses of Dorset.

ROGER GRIMLEY has published many books recording the history of bus and coach operators in the West Country, from Cornwall and Devon to Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire.

And this is Mark Maidment's site, the cyber home of preserved buses, trolleybuses and trams of Bournemouth Corporation Transport.

The website of WHOTT - the West of England Historic Omnibus & Transport Trust - whose vision is of a permanent museum in the West Country, devoted to the history of public and commercial road transport in the region.

Winchester, another cathedral city, was home to the fondly remembered King Alfred Motor Services.  A name and operation kept alive today by the Friends of King Alfred Buses.

For further information about the buses of Lincolnshire the LEYTR site is well worth a look.

Paul Lacey has written about the buses and coaches of the Thames Valley area and Newbury, this is his website with list of his books.

And here is a comprehensive history of Harrington the body builder - with those oh so well remembered dorsal fins!

For the history and fleets of a diverse range of bus operators around the country, see Peter Gould's pages (formerly Mobile Museum and British Bus Archives).  This informative site includes the history of Hants and Dorset Motor Services Ltd.   To access these histories, go to Peter Gould's web page and consult the alphabetical index of operator histories and fleet lists.

If tickets are of interest, then the Transport Ticket Society may be informative.

The sites of two French transports associations are worthy of mention:  Car-Histo-Bus and also France Passion des Transports Urbains.

And lastly Steve Annell's site The Bus Station has links all over the country and the world .................

LINKS TO SITES OF OTHER TRANSPORT INTEREST

PADDLE STEAMERS

This is the site to visit if the names of  Cosens steamers like Embassy, Monarch and Emperor of India evoke fond memory.

And Tom Lee's site the Paddle Steamer Picture Gallery is of great interest.

"Cosens of Weymouth"  by Richard Clammer, published in September 2001, tells the story of the Cosens paddle steamers from 1918 until the end of operations in 1966.   ISBN 0 906294 47 9.  Obtainable from Twelveheads Press, Truro, Cornwall.   A second volume, covering the period from 1848 to 1918 was published in Autumn 2005 and this is obtainable from Black Dwarf Publications.

And on this site you will find out about the journeyings of the PS Princess Elizabeth - now moored at a new home in Dunkirk

And this is the place to go for information about the last sea going paddle steamer of them all, the Waverley.

HAULAGE AND ROAD TRANSPORT

Jempsons of Rye in Sussex and Wymeswold in Leicestershire have a history stretching far back in the haulage trade.  Still very much in business today with a fleet of 85 vehicles their story is told here.

RURAL RAILWAYS

ACoRP - the Association of Community Rail Partnerships, with over 60 member partnerships works to enhance and further the cause of the local and rural railways of Britain.

If like me you are interested in trams and modern light rail, this is the homepage of the Light Rail Transit Association.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For more information about the Rossmore Bus Company and Louie Dingwall, see Horsewoman: the extraordinary Mrs D by Alan R. Bennett.  Particularly Chapter 3, pages 44-46.   ISBN 0 902129 34 9.    Published in 1979 by Dorset Publishing Company.

For more information about Bere Regis and District see A History of Western National by R C Anderson and G G A Frankis.  Particularly pages 163-164.  ISBN 0 7153 7771 X.   Published in 1979 by David & Charles.    Also History of the Hants & Dorset Motor Services Limited by Colin Morris.   Particularly pages 112-113.   ISBN 0 7153 60541 5.   Published in 1973 by David & Charles.   Lastly, a history of Bere Regis is in course of preparation (2011) for publication by a local author.

Further information on both Rossmore (pages 117-128) and Bere Regis (pages 111-117 and 205-206) appears in Trams and Buses of Poole by C G Roberts and B L Jackson, published in 2001 by Oakwood Press.  ISBN 0 85361 572 1.   Brian Jackson's earlier book Isle of Portland Railways, volume three, Railway, Associated and Other Bus Services, also published by Oakwood Press (in 2000), has much information on the several independent bus operators of earlier years in the Weymouth and Portland area.  ISBN 0 85361 566 7.  A further book by Brian Jackson Rail and Road Transport on the Isle of Portland - a pictorial survey brings the bus history of the Weymouth and Portland area up to date to 2001.  (Oakwood Press, ISBN 0 85361 581 0).

And for more general information about the country buses of England, the classic work is of course The Country Bus by John Hibbs.  Published in 1986 by David & Charles.  ISBN 0 7153 8687 5.  A general work with a selection of histories of private operators around the country is The Independent Bus by Keith Turns, also published by David & Charles in 1974.  ISBN 0 7153 6438 3. 

Another book by John Hibbs, published in autumn 2003, tells of his career in the rural bus business in years gone by.  It struck many a chord with me and my own career in running a bus company.  A Country Busman - the story of two young men who purchased an old established business called Corona Coaches Ltd., based near Sudbury in Suffolk.  This is a book that contains humour, pathos and tragedy but is also a month by month record of what it was like (and still is like) to run a country bus and coach business and raises questions about the rural bus business and rural transport problems that are relevant today.   Published by DTS, Croydon. ISBN 1 900515 30 X.

A very interesting work (but hard to find) on the transport history of the Manche département is Quand les petits trains faisaient la Manche by Alain de Dieuleveult and Michel Harouy.  Published in France by Editions Cenomane of Le Mans in 1988.  ISBN 2-905596-29-5.

For more information on Hutchings & Cornelius and Safeway Services please consult Somerset's Buses by Laurie James, this develops the story of these two operators in far more depth.  It was published by Tempus in the spring of 2004.  ISBN 0 7524 3171 4.

More information about the SOA rota services can be found in Independent Buses in Shropshire by Neville Mercer, published in 2011 by Venture. ISBN 978 1905 304 417.

A book by Jeff Grayer about the closure of the Somerset & Dorset rail line in 1966.  It has information and pictures about the replacement buses too. Sabotaged and Defeated was published in 2006 by Kingfisher Productions.  ISBN 0-946184-78-X.  In 2010 Jeff returned to the theme with Sabotaged and Defeated Revisited: Pre and Post Closure Views on the Somerset and Dorset  ISBN 1 9064 1944 2.

For those with an interest in country buses (especially Dorset, Wiltshire, Devon and Cornwall) my friend and colleague Roger Grimley has researched and written an informative set of operator histories for the county of Dorset.  Along the Dusty Road is a series of  four volumes which were reissued during the early part of 2009, priced £5 per volume. Part One - The Piddle Valley, Hazelbury Bryan, Bulbarrow and the Blandford Road; Part Two - The Poole and Wareham Roads; Part Three - The Yeovil Road and Sydling St Nicholas;  Part Four - The Cerne Valley and The Bridport Road.   If you would like details of how to contact Roger to purchase copies or obtain a catalogue, follow this link.

Two other titles of interest worth looking out for are Village Buses of East Dorset and Bere Regis & District Motor Services, written and published by Peter Roberts in June 2008.  A further book on Bere Regis was published by Hobnob Press in December 2012. Written by Andrew Waller and titled Bere Regis & District Motor Services - the life and times of country busmen. ISBN 978-0-946418-85-5.