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SAFEWAY
SERVICES
The
other operator of the two firms based in South
Petherton
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Please
note - this is a site of historical record and does not contain current
service information
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For eighty years the Gunn family name was synonymous
with Safeway Services and
their buses
on the road from Yeovil to Crewkerne and South Petherton.
Coincidentally both of the South
Petherton
operators, Safeway Services and Hutchings and Cornelius, celebrated a
half
century of service to the travelling public of Somerset in
1978.
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Herbert and Veronica Gunn in the depot office
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Gilbert
Gunn kept
a pub in Petherton (the Bell Inn)
and his son Herbert worked at Westlands in Yeovil, where he served an
engineering apprenticeship. His son Herbert (H R Gunn - "Bert") drove
for the
National until March
1928 when he and his father started with a Dennis G-type 20-seater bus
and founded a business that would
grow by
1965 to a fleet of ten buses and coaches. In the early days
rivalry was intense and father, mother and son worked in the business
and later daughter Veronica (known as Vera) came home to help. Gilbert
Gunn died in 1938. His widow Jessica aided by son Herbert and daughter
Veronica assumed the running of the firm. Herbert was mechanically
minded and drove whilst Veronica looked after the administration and
conducted. Cissy Gayleard was another long-serving
conductress
with the firm. By 1939 the fleet numbered six. It was an intensely personal business with regular
battles with Southern National over fares, a topic on which Miss Gunn
had strong views which she regularly expressed! Miss Gunn had the
distinction then of being the only lady member of the national
committee of the
Passenger Vehicles Operators Association.The
stage service required a
full time commitment of two vehicles, whilst others were
employed
on excursions, tours and private hire work. In 1965
the bus services
were carrying an average of 1400 passengers a day, including
schoolchildren, and
the return fare from Crewkerne to Yeovil was 4/3d (twenty four miles
return). |
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The main Safeway route from South
Petherton ran
southwards via Lopen, Hinton
St George and Merriott to Crewkerne, where it turned east via
Misterton,
Haselbury Plucknett, East Chinnock and West Coker to Yeovil Bus
Station.
Several journeys used to go past the bus station and the town centre to
Pen Mill
rail station in Yeovil. The route changed little over the
years,
but in
1949 the service was extended for a while from Hinton St George to
Dinnington,
and in 1953 a service was introduced from Crewkerne to Clapton and
Birdsmoorgate. The Gunns had a petrol filling station on the main A303
for many years. Whilst Herbert was primarily a bus man the firm did
take over Venture Coaches of South Petherton from Ernie Giles, as an
extension to the coaching side of the business.
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200 APB, AEC Reliamce with Burlingham 44 seat body,at Merriott in 1965.
New to Safeguard of Guildford in 1956 and passed to Safeway in 1962.
Now preserved and in the heritage fleet of the original owners at Guildford.
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Safeway Services
Bell punch ticket
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Duplex ticket
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Mmmmm - a lovely
original
Leopard - Miss Gunn had it as a coach until she passed away, then it
was used for service work.
(Steve Oxbrow
photo, 24th April
2003).
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| Herbert Gunn died in 1977 and then in May
1978 Western National withdrew their parallel competing Yeovil -
Crewkerne route 467. At the same time National route 466 from
Yeovil through Stoke to South Petherton was withdrawn - this had
paralleled the H&C route, necessitating new timetables for both
South Petherton operators. With the demise of the Hutchings and Cornelius
business in
May 1979, the Safeway
network of bus routes was considerably expanded to include several of
the ex
H&C services (a) from South Petherton via Montacute to Yeovil
daily, (b) Crewkerne
and West Chinnock via Montacute to Yeovil daily, and (c) from Yeovil to
Barrington and Ilminster / South Petherton on Fridays. A new
route was
started on Wednesdays from Crewkerne through Lopen, Westport and Curry
Mallett
to Taunton, which ran for a while. Bus deregulation
introduced in
1986 bought competition from Kingston Coaches (Coleman) of Yeovil in
the period 1988 - 1990, but this was short-lived and the newcomers were
seen off after two years. Despite very low fares charged
by
the newcomer, trading as Yeovilian,
Safeways managed to build on their many years of service
and retain passenger loyalty - but that is not to say that the
competition did not hurt them financially. |
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| cover
of the 1978 timetable
above celebrating 50 years of operation |
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Safeway
Services timetable for
1978. If compared to the 1936 pre-war timetable little change
would be observed.
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| Laying
over in Yeovil on 26.05.68 is Bedford OB/Duple 29-seater
MYB33. New to Safeway in 1950 it remained in their fleet
until 1974 and it is now in preservation in Northants and makes
appearances at rallies. (Photo Simon Brown). |
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Surrounded
by two Wakes vehicles, we see again Safeway AEC 200APB on
22.04.67. In the fleet from 1962 to 1982, it also has been
preserved.
All three are laying over between runs at the corner of
Southville and Sherborne Roads in Yeovil. (Photo
Simon Brown). |
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| The Safeway network in 1981 -
after the route acquisitions from Hutchings
and Cornelius in 1979 |
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| After 1990 things
went on more or less as they had always been for some years. In 1995
the fleet numbered fourteen, six buses and eight coaches. Then in
August 1999 Miss Veronica Gunn died at the grand age of 91. The firm
had
reached its 70th anniversary the year before in 1998. The business passed to another V. Gunn, her second
cousin Vernon, who was to run the firm until its eightieth year, 2008.
The Friday shoppers run
from Ilminster and South Petherton to Yeovil via Kingsbury Episcopi
disappeared in July 1994 (by then route 680 in the county council's
numbering system, but not shown on the buses). The Wednesday
route to Taunton (number 603) had low carryings and was withdrawn in
March 2001. Requiring
three buses all day with a fourth at peak periods, the
two
routes operated by Safeway at that time (mainly commercially at their
own risk) were:
681 Crewkerne - South
Petherton - Montacute -
Yeovil
(an amalgam of the routes taken over from
H&C in
1979)
682 South Petherton -
Crewkerne - Misterton - Yeovil
(the original Safeway route)
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1928 - 1978 commemorative ticket |
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July
2004 saw the 682 further reduced in frequency to one shoppers journey
plus some peak hour journeys, as competition on the original Safeway
route came from First with their services 47 and 61 between Yeovil and
Crewkerne, providing some thirteen journeys a day each way. The ex
Hutchings and Cornelius route 681 from South Petherton to Yeovil still
provided ten jourmeys each way on weekdays.
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Further reductions were to come. By Spring 2005 the 681
was reduced to seven journeys a day between South Petherton and
Yeovil. The 682 was reduced to the absolute minimum of one
return off peak shoppers journey, running between Crewkerne and Norton,
connecting there with the 681 into Yeovil. All operations
along the original traditional Safeway route over the A30 from
Crewkerne to Yeovil had ceased some time before. From 23rd
December 2006 the remaining connecting service from Crewkerne to Norton
ceased; and the main 681 (ex H&C route) received unnecessary
competition between
South Petherton to Yeovil thereafter from the minibuses of
NippyBus route
N10. As a consequence of the competition Safeway withdrew
the 681 (the H&C route of days gone by) after operation on 26th May
2007 - a sad day indeed.
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Safeway Volvo NIB8459 at
Yeovil
(photo by Steve Oxbrow) |
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Front and rear views of Leyland Leopard GIB5970 at Yeovil bus station
in the fleet from 1992 until 2004
(photos by Steve Oxbrow)
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Subsequently in early 2007 South West
Coaches (which incorporated the former Wakes
business) introduced their service 81 hourly between Yeovil and South
Petherton running against Nippy Bus. This in turn led to the
withdrawal of the Nippy Bus N10 service from 13th August 2007. South West Coaches still run the 81 route in 2024.
The last remaining Safeway services in 2007 were subsidised by Somerset
County
Council, and were operated by the following three vehicles:
H533YCX new DAF /
Ikarus acquired in January
NIB 8459
Volvo B10M / East Lancs bus
J601 KCU Dart /
Wright.
Vernon Gunn retired on 1 April 2008 and sold the Safeway coach business
to Alan Graham of South West Coaches and the coaches have been
transferred to Yeovil (having been removed from Lopen Business Park for
planning reasons) but a repair workshop is still maintained by South
West at Lopen. The Vernon Gunn operator's license was recorded by
the Western Traffic Commissioner as "not renewed 7 October
2008". However it seems that the Safeway name is being kept by South
West for goodwill marketing purposes. Houses have now been built
on the former Safeway base at North Street, South Petherton.
This really seems to end the 80 year Gunn dynasty.
===== with thanks to Laurie James, Roger
Grimley, Steve Oxbrow, Simon Brown and David Grimmett for much
additional information
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=====For more
information see the book "Somerset's Buses" by Laurie James,
published by
Tempus
in February 2004 =====
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