90 Years on the Road

Turn the clock back forty years and the chances are I would have been going into school today - South Hunsley in Melton in case you're interested - on an East Yorkshire Motor Services Bristol VR bus. Yes I was something of a bus spotter in my early teens, noting down the bus numbers, collecting tickets and timetables, attending the Sandtoft Gathering, hanging around the back of Hull bus station. (Sounds a bit dodgy that, I can assure you it wasn't).

The route from Brough to Melton was serviced by buses from the Elloughton depot so that originally meant, and I'm talking about 1973 here, AEC Bridgemasters and AEC Renowns with the occasional Daimler Fleetline or Leyland Atlantean. EYMS started to buy the Bristol VRs in 73 (they bought 150 in all) so eventually most journeys were on them. By the end of the decade I'd moved on from buses to pop music and the radio so most of the annuals, timetables and fleet lists languished in boxes until I had a clear out just before moving over to France - either sold on eBay or, chucked in the recycling.

But not everything was ditched and I've uploaded some scans on this post. The reason? On this date in 1926 East Yorkshire Motor Services Limited was registered as a company by the British Automobile Traction Co Ltd combining the services of Lee & Beaulah - who'd originally started by running services between Hull and Elloughton - and Hull & District Motor Services Ltd. So today is EYMS's 90th anniversary.

Firstly a history of the company from around the time of its fiftieth anniversary. The article by Stephen R. Smith comes from the January 1977 edition of Buses magazine - my only surviving copy.

I had a couple of boxes filled with timetable books from various companies around the UK. Goodness knows when they stopped producing these as all the timetables are online now. My copy from May 1974 cost just 8 pence.

In the 70s the EYMS livery changed. Initially, following nationalisation, they'd adopted blue and white but were forced to repaint them poppy red and white from 1974. These black and white photos come from the 'Private and Municipal Preservation Group' on Hull Road, Hessle. The AEC Renown, fleet number 757 is in the pre-nationalisation indigo and primrose livery. The Leyland Panther no 805 shows the National Bus Company logo.

I meant to sell the dozens of tickets and a few ticket rolls I had but still haven't got round to it. These will have been issued one the Setright machines in use at the time.