The Delaine Dynasty

Saturday 19th July 2025

Longer term readers may recall the D is for Delaine blog I wrote a couple of years ago for 2023’s A-to-Z of bus and train companies series. It coincided with Anthony Delaine-Smith’s tenure as Omnibus Society President that year including his fascinating talk to members at his Presidential address in London. It led me to take a ride on the Company’s small network of routes based on Bourne and Market Deeping in Lincolnshire and reporting very favourably on what I experienced.

Ever since then Anthony has kindly extended an open invitation for me to return and take a look inside the Delaine Bus Museum which sits alongside the company’s bus garage in Bourne. Following another meet up at the ALBUM conference a couple of months ago I was pleased to finally get round to making that visit on Friday, last week.

And what an impressive visit it was. Not only is Delaine unique in being a bus company in the same family ownership since its formation in 1890, even more impressive is the care and trouble the family has taken over the last 135 years to safely retain so many original artifacts, memorabilia and records across that time which Anthony has painstakingly curated into the wonderful Delaine Bus Museum along with a collection of heritage vehicles.

The Museum is overseen by the Delaine Heritage Trust, a separate charity from the bus company, which owns seven heritage vehicles including KTL780, a Willowbrook bodied Leyland Titan PD2/20 which was the first new Leyland double decker to enter the fleet in 1956 as well as being the last vehicle to be purchased by Thomas Arthur Smith founder of the business who passed away in 1958

Another wonderful vehicle in the collection is this superb 1958 Leyland Tiger Cub (MTL750) which has yet another unique claim to fame as being the only such chassis to be bodied by Yeates of Loughborough.

It was withdrawn from service in 1969 but saw further service with Vagg’s in Shropshire until 1975 and was about to be broken up in 1982 when it was rescued by the Delaine team who have restored to its former glory. Having had the benefit of a ride from Bourne’s bus station over to the Museum in it, I can vouch for the superb job that’s been done on returning the bus to its original condition.

They don’t make them like that any more.

The Museum also has one of only two double decks built by Yeates in its collection – RCT3 – a Leyland Titan PD3/1 pictured below and also at the top of this blog with three of the brothers standing proudly in front of it. It was new in 1960 and withdrawn in 1979.

A fourth vehicle in the collection, from 1973, is the last new Leyland double decker to enter the Delaine fleet and the first example of the then new Leyland Atlantean AN68 on an extended 10.3m chassis with bodywork by Northern Counties.

It was part of a five vehicle consortium purchased with fellow independents Whippet and OK Motor Services.

The fifth and final Leyland bus in the Museum is E100AFW. It’s a Leyland Tiger with Duple Dominant bus body and as per usual with Delaine’s heritage collection has another claim to fame, this one being the last Dominant bus body produced by Duple (between 1974 and 1987).

Also intriguing is the 2+3 seating towards the rear making for an overall capacity of 59 and ideal for school runs.

Two other more contemporary vehicles in the Museum collection are a 1995 Volvo Olympian and a 2000 Volvo B7TL both with East Lancs bodies. The former’s claim to fame is being the first Volvo to enter the Delaine fleet and worked the last step entrance journey between Bourne and Peterborough in 2016 while the later was the first PSVAR compliant vehicle to enter the fleet. It was withdrawn from service in 2023.

Aside from the vehicles the Museum is a treasure trove of equipment, records, photographs and a whole host of memorabilia to entertain, delight and fascinate the visitor. There’s so much to see I can’t possibly do justice to the collection in just a few paragraphs, but here are a few tasters of what’s on offer.

There’s a display of uniform including Inspector Jimmy Culshaw’s hat which has a lovely back story. James ‘Jimmy’ Culshaw joined the company in 1932 managing the company’s depot in Peterborough before transferring to Bourne in 1939 when that depot closed. He assisted owner Thomas Arthur Smith who had recently become widowed and dedicated the remainder of this life to the company, working up until two weeks before his death in 1971, aged an incredible 89. On his death his Inspector’s hat became the proud possession of his grandson, Peter Boizot, who became famous for starting the Pizza Express chain of restaurants, but Peter always promised he would pass the hat on to the Delaine-Smith family in due course. 47 years later, on Peter’s death in 2018, also at the age of 89, he kept his promise and one of his most cherished possessions, his grandfather’s Delaine Inspector’s hat was returned and is now proudly displayed in the Museum.

In another display there’s a nostalgic look at hundreds of original items that would have graced the shelves of the company’s stores…

… and along one of the walls a comprehensive timeline of significant developments in the company’s history…

… as well as countless photographs on display throughout the Museum…

… including this nostalgic atmospheric view of Stamford Bus Station on Castle Hill in 1965 on a typical weekday afternoon with a United Counties Bristol bound for Corby, a Delaine AEC for Bourne via Essendine and a Lincolnshire Road Car Bristol for Grantham all awaiting their departures as well as an unidentified bus from Barton laying over. You can sense the businesses as shoppers board these buses to return home while the United Counties driver and conductor exchange gossip before heading off on their next journey.

There’s a collection of registration plates which have graced the company’s fleet…

… and perhaps two of the most interesting photographs on display are one of this 14 seat Ford Model T from 1919 which began Delaine’s motorbus operations and can be seen displaying the Delaine scroll fleetname which has been applied to the rear of every vehicle in the fleet right up to today.

The other is of this Willowbrook bodied Crossley DD42/5 which was the first double deck to enter the fleet in 1948 to cater for the increasing post war demand on the Bourne to Peterborough service. A section of the garage roof had to be raised to accommodate it undercover. Interestingly the initial format of the livery applied didn’t find favour and was quickly replaced by the distinctive triple banded livery seen here and which is still applied to all double deck buses in the fleet today and is viewed as an essential part of the Delaine brand by the Delaine-Smith family.

The other facet of the company that’s become synonymous with the brand is the consistency of the family ownership right from Thomas Arthur Smith (who founded the original Motor Bus operations) and his son Hugh to the latter’s four sons and the next generation. It was lovely to meet brothers Ian and Kevin together with Anthony (photographed at the beginning of this blog) as well as Mark who was beavering away in the office during my visit.

Ian is the eldest son of Hugh Delaine-Smith and his second wife Evelyn. Now aged 78, he joined the business full time in 1965 and has always taken a keen interest in the development of the commercial and operational side of the business. He succeeded his father as Company Chairman on his death in 1995.

Kevin is Ian’s younger brother and the second son of Hugh and Evelyn. Now 71 he joined the business full time in 1971 having served as an engineering apprentice with Whippet. He has always been passionate about the company’s heritage and was responsible for retaining the majority of the artifacts over the decades which are now in the Museum.

Anthony, who is 60 later this year, is the eldest son of Hugh and his third wife Julia. He began working in the company during school holidays as a cleaner aged eight, was working in the office at 13 and was shunting buses in the yard aged 14. He’s been the catalyst for many of the developments in the business since the 1980s and succeeded his father as Managing Director on his death in 1995. His younger brother Mark, aged 55, joined the business full time in 1987. He’s the statistician of the family becoming a Director of the business in 1995 on Hugh’s death, and is one of two Transport Managers for the Company.

Kevin, Ian, Anthony and Mark have kept alive the family traditions established by founder Thomas and his son Hugh over the last 30 years since Hugh passed away and the good news is the Delaine Dynasty continues with Anthony’s eldest daughter Jennifer joining the business full time in 2010, being appointed Company Secretary on her Great Aunt Beryl Tilley’s death in 2012, and Victoria, Anthony’s younger daughter, joining full time in 2016 and becoming the youngest PCV driver in the country when she passed her PCV test that December aged 18 years and 107 days. Last year Victoria succeeded Anthony as one of the company’s two Transport Managers.

Chatting to the family reinforces the observation I wrote back in 2023 that you can’t fail to be impressed by the family’s dedication to providing an outstanding bus service for residents of Bourne and the surrounding area. They and their predecessors have accumulated many decades of vast experience running the business from before the 1930s licensing era through over 50 years of regulation to 1986’s deregulation and the almost 40 years since then, seeing many local government reorganisations and changed funding regimes, experiencing the pandemic and now two new Mayoral authorities in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority and Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority,

Fortunately the potential existential threat to Delaine as a business from franchising is increasingly looking a remote possibility with the new Mayor for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough asking ever more pertinent questions about the sources of funding for such an expensive project while the Mayor of the new Greater Lincolnshire Authority seems unlikely to make buses a high priority in her plans.

Which will hopefully mean residents of Bourne and surrounds can enjoy the quality of service Delaine prides itself in offering for many decades and generations of the family to come.

The Delaine Bus Museum is open for public viewing on the second Saturday of the month between March and October together with heritage bus trips in the afternoon and comes very much recommended.

My huge thanks to the Delaine family for their very kind hospitality last Friday.

Roger French

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