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DORSET (RURAL)
DORSET (URBAN)
SOMERSET
WILTSHIRE
HAMPSHIRE
FAROE ISLANDS
FRANCE (REGIONAL)
ISLE OF SKYE
FRANCE (NATIONAL)
LINCOLNSHIRE


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.  A further book on Bere Regis was published by Hobnob Press in December 2012. Written by the late Andrew Waller and titled Bere Regis & District Motor Services - the life and times of country busmen. ISBN 978-0-946418-85-5.

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.

Paul Lacey has written several books about the independent operators of Berkshire, including Maidenhead; Henley & Marlow; Bracknell, Crowthorne & Wokingham; and White Buses.

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.

Remembering Silver Star by Terry Grace, published in June 2021, remembers the Wiltshire operator from his youth through nearly 40 years of business until the company sold out to Wilts & Dorset in June 1963.

For a perceptive and interesting story of the bus industry from another perspective across the years from 1920 to 1970, Ben Colson tells of the trials and tribulations of bus operations in East Anglia in his book A Journeys End, published in the summer of 2021.


DORSET (RURAL)
DORSET (URBAN)
SOMERSET
WILTSHIRE
HAMPSHIRE
FAROE ISLANDS
FRANCE (REGIONAL)
ISLE OF SKYE
FRANCE (NATIONAL)
LINCOLNSHIRE