Book Review Part 2 (mini blog)

Competition And Confusion!

Many may remember the post-deregulation "bus wars" in Sheffield. This shows Haymarket looking towards Lady's Bridge; but all city centre roads were like this. Horrific! Glasgow was similar with Manchester following in a close third place.

Bur you do not think of a quiet Dorset seaside resort as a hotbed of bus competition and chaos. Pehaps it wasn't chaos in Weymouth, but the lemming-like competitive urge erupted on numerous occasions.

fbb is not going to give detail; you will have to beg, borrow or preferably buy Keith  Shayshutt's book ...

... details of which are available on line.

These "independents" are shown in order of their appearance in Keith's superbly illustrated pages.

Smiths Of Portland ...

... operating a competitive service to - surprise,  surprise, Portland.

Bere Regis ...

... a much respected coach and bus operator, running mainly rural services in South Wessex but generally not competitive.

Weybus

... ran a noticeable network of Weymouth town services, cluttering up the town with even more bread vans. But did they ever operate a routemaster?

Weaverbus ...

... part of an attempt by Dorset County to improve buses to Lulworth. Tendered rather than competitive.

Wessex Bus ...

... another fairly short-lived operator of minibuses in a rather fetching raspberry and white livery.

Sureline ...

Quite a late arrival to the competitive bus scene with a 1X to Southwell, Portland. 

Didn't last too long. Notably it had a go at rural routes as here to Yeovil ...

South West Coaches ...

... a more stable lot, operating mainly tendered services  including Yeovil Junction to Yeovil Town and Yeovil Pen Mill ...

... and they are still there!

Damory ...

... also still there but now just a "brand" of More Bus rather than a separate company. Again their business is mainly tendered and rural work.

Keith covers all these operations and leaves the reader breathless because there is more besides, including Town Tracker, Service 31, The Jurassic Coast routes and even much more.

If the cost (£40) is off putting, fbb can assure you that, compared with the average and cheaper bus books on the market, this represents excellent value judged on a cost per picture basis (there are oodles) and on a page plus information value judgement. There are 178 pages all in full colour, plus four pages of cover.

22p a page is dirt cheap for the pictures alone!

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 The Easter Jigsaw 

Breaking Bread?

You would guess that most blog readers know about the Communion Service in Christian churches. Bread is broken and you might get a sip of wine and, strangely, the celebrant may refer to it as a meal. Hardly satisfying for sustaining the likes of fbb!

But it was a meal - even in the Bible it was a meal. Part of the celebration of the Passover was a meal packed with symbolism ...

... too much symbolism for a brief blog snippet. but at the very first Passover, when the Israelites were about to escape from slavery in Egypt, they were "told by God" to make, eat and carry with them bread made without yeast. 

It would keep longer for the journey.

In the ancient Passover celebration meal, it was these flatbreads that were broken by the meal's host and shared by the family.  - broken and shared.

While they were eating, Jesus took a piece of bread, gave a prayer of thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. “Take and eat it,” he said; “this is my body, broken for you. Eat this bread in remembrance of me”

Jesus - broken and shared.

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 Next Sheffield Strangeness blog : Weds 16th April