WHOTT

Running Day

AEC Reliance (P Platt & G Truran)

£4.00 SOLD OUT

Bere Regis & District (Hobnob Press) - Written by Andrew Waller, this is the story how three young men from Dorset villages created a partnership that in its heyday was the biggest privately owned bus concern in the south of England.  For a while it ran well over 100 buses and coaches, serving the county’s towns and villages, schools, army camps and factories. To meet the needs of soldiers and sailors going home for the weekend, it also reached distant corners of the land.  This book traces how Bere Regis & District’s network of rural bus services grew out of the labours of the 19^th century carriers and the pioneer busmen of the early 20^th century.  By the end of World War II it was strong enough to keep expanding for two or three decades.  Growing car ownership, the deaths of the three partners and Transport Acts in the 1980s each posed new challenges.  Even so the business lasted in one form or another for almost 66 years, longer than any of the big bus companies that surrounded it.

A4 hardback, 166 pages (plus 8 in colour, and profusely illustrated. 

£5.00 + P&P £1-00 Ref OP11

see WHOTT's new publication on the Bere Regis fleet under separate heading

Devon General - a fascinating story (L Folkard- Devon General Society)

The only in-depth study on the history of this once much-loved company that served the more populous areas of Torbay, Newton Abbot, Exeter and East Devon. Founded at Exeter in 1919, the company sold out to the National Electric Construction Company (later BET) in 1922. The NECC already owned the Torquay Tramways Company that also had its own fleet of buses, so the Torquay fleet adopted the name Devon General to keep the enlarged company’s interests distinctly separated from the trams which continued until 1934. The book describes the growth in coaching, seasonally attractive to the tourist trade, with acquisitions of some smaller coaching operators along the way. A major expansion took place in 1932 when the Torquay branch of London based Timpsons, with its Grey Cars fleet was acquired. The book is full of anecdotes, personal memories and statistics, punctuated by tables of route alterations and ending with a fleet list supporting the text. Published in 2007, stocks of this book are now dwindling. A4 portrait, hard backed, 310 pages, 160 illustrations, 48 of which in colour.

£8.00 plus postage  SOLD OUT

£4.00 + P&P £1-00  SOLD OUT

Exeter and the Trams - 1882-1931 - Well researched by local historian, Julia Neville, this book reveals much of the social history surrounding Exeter’s trams, from the succession of horse-drawn operators to the electrification of 1905 and cessation in 1931.  Not a book about fleet numbers but a real eye-opener into the politics and impact they made on the daily lives of Exeter’s commuting population.  Covering a period of fifty years, this book reveals a lot of anecdotes and statistics in a most fascinating way, uncovering a lot of previously unpublished information.  Slightly larger than A5, 126 pages, nearly 100 illustrations, some in colour.  Buy this book and get a copy of WHOTT’s publication – EXETER TRAMS for free

£4.00  SOLD OUT

THE TRAMS OF EXETER - POSTCARDS FROM EXETER - A5 landscape, spiral bound, 40 colour and black & white images 1905 - 1931 with extended captions

£7.99 + P&P £1-00 - Few remaining

PSV Circle fleet history of Exeter Corporation trams and buses

£8.00 SOLD OUT

Family Affairs - Somerset & Dorset Hauliers, M Marshall - Transporting agricultural goods and exploiting mineral resources have been the principal drivers for haulage contractors in Somerset and Dorset.  This book covers many examples in 196 illustrated pages.

£8.00 + P&P £1-00 Ref OP18

£12.00  SOLD OUT

My First 44 Pictures of Western/Southern National (Davey)

£3.00 SOLD OUT

£5.00  SOLD OUT

£3.00  SOLD OUT

UNEXPECTEDLY AVAILABLE ...... (R J Crawley, D R MacGregor & F D Simpson)

A limited number of original copies of Volume One in THE YEARS BETWEEN series.

If you already have either Vols 2 or 3 but missed out on Volume One, this is a must.  It portrays the story from the origins of the company right up to 1929 when Western National and Southern National were formed, that was soon after followed by Eastern National.  Covers a large amount of history of the company in the west country during the decade that spanned the rapid expansion of the National Omnibus & Transport Company. 

£4.00 + P&P £1-00 Ref OP10