Book Review: Buses of South Wessex

Monday 21st April 2025

This Easter weekend’s blogfest began with a Book Review, so it seems appropriate to bookend it with another.

Keith Shayshutt has just published another treasure trove of nostalgia comprising historic details about bus route and operational developments over a period of time in a geographic area.

Following his previous books looking at Devon, Cornwall and the Eastern Counties bus company, Keith has now turned his attention to another region that featured in his early life – the Weymouth and wider area of ‘South Wessex’ (including Dorchester and Swanage) where he spent many happy summer weekends exploring the bus network during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

This lavishly illustrated 184 page book covers bus route developments in the Weymouth area from the mid 1960s to current times. The main focus is on Weymouth but for the sake of completeness, it also delves into the wider West Dorset and Isle of Purbeck areas as well.

The book features details of the three former Tilling Group operators (Southern National, Hants & Dorset and Wilts & Dorset) and their progress into the National Bus Company followed by the subsequent reorganisations, takeovers and privatisation sales as well as covering the myriad of smaller privately owned bus companies that have featured in this area.

If you share Keith’s penchant for buses in this part of Dorset then this book is definitely for you. It will rekindle fond memories particularly from its abundance of great quality photographs, images of publicity used by bus companies over the last six decades as well as Keith’s usual trait of including detailed working timetables of some of the most significant routes.

For example, chapter three includes the detailed schedules which applied in summer 1965 making for a fascinating reminder of how things were for holidaying passengers in Weymouth as well as for bus crews by following the bus working diagrams applicable during that glorious decade.

For those with a more general interest the book provides a fascinating insight into how this challenging area of the country to run buses, faced up to the tough economics of the late 1960s and 1970s leading up to deregulation in the 1980s. All the more so as notwithstanding that long period of decline it seemed uncharacteristic for Weymouth and the surrounding area to became a hotbed of competition for many years.

Keith’s methodical coverage of the post deregulation period includes devoting a chapter to each and every one of the many operators that came and went during this period leading the reader better informed of what happened and why (the book contains 27 chapters, giving you some idea of the extensive coverage).

I was particularly interested to read the Foreword to the book written by David Beaman who had an illustrious career in the bus industry, including Operations Director at the Oxford Bus Company (OBC) at the time of privatisation, and who, of course, faced significant competition in that city from Harry Blundred’s Thames Transit and Oxford Tube. During the sale of the National Bus Company subsidiaries David explains how he and Arthur Townsend (OBC’s Managing Director) looked at purchasing Southern National but concluded it wasn’t worth it at that time. But David later went on to work as Divisional Director, Dorset with Southern National (during the Cawlett ownership era) looking after its Weymouth, Bridport and Dorchester areas with the aim of regaining market share from competitor, Weybus.

While David was busy doing an amazing job in challenging financial and competitive circumstances, First Bus bought Cawlett and he soon found himself a victim of one of that Company’s many management reorganisations leading to him working abroad for a few years but on his return to the Wessex area he bravely set up his own bus company trading as Sureline, adding yet more competition to Weymouth’s bus network.

David provides a very frank and honest appraisal of that time and is well worth a read – and that’s just the first four pages of the book.

As you continue devouring the subsequent chapters and soaking up the historic developments over the last sixty years you’ll become familiar with the ‘Western National years’; the birth of ‘the new Southern National’; Smiths of Portland; Town Tracker; Bere Regis Coaches; Weybus; Weaverbus; Wessex Bus; ‘Into the First Group era’; South West Coaches and ‘Damory’ and much more.

There’s also a chapter devoted to Weymouth’s Open Top Bristol VRs and another detailing the background to the highly successful Jurassic Coaster branded bus routes, explaining how this ‘mini-network’ was established, initially from a Bournemouth to Exeter route with Rural Bus Grant funding, and has subsequently developed into a high profile and popular addition to the tourist market.

If you’ve purchased one of Keith’s previous volumes you’ll know what you’re in for this time. This book is to the same high standards of content and presentation. If you haven’t had the pleasure of buying one before now, then why not treat yourself to a late Easter gift, but it will cost you £40.

‘Buses of South Wessex, the last 60 years’ is available from the usual outlets.

Roger French

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