When double deck motor buses were first introduced they were all open-top, just like their forerunners the horse buses. Roofs were not permitted until the 1920s, after which covered top decks soon became the norm, but ever since then seasonal open-top services have been a feature of a number of Britain’s most popular seaside resorts. Usually these would use older buses nearing the ends of their lives that had been converted to open-top or, from the 1960s onwards, new vehicles fitted with a detachable roof.
Malcolm Batten takes a tour of the seaside towns of England and Wales to capture their varied fleets of open-top buses between the late 1960s and the late 1990s. The photographs are arranged geographically in a clockwise direction around the country, starting at Southend-on-Sea and finishing at Cromer, Lowestoft and Felixstowe. Locations featured include Brighton, the Isle of Wight, Bournemouth, Blackpool (where some of the town’s open-top trams are also illustrated) and the Isle of Man. At the end there are short chapters on visiting open-top buses at the annual Epsom Derby horse race, preserved vehicles, and a few surviving open-top services in the 2020s.
Contains around 200 colour and black & white photographs, each accompanied by captions. 96 pages.