In Phillips of Shiptonthorpe – School bus operators in the Yorkshire Wolds area the authors, Stuart Emmett and John Briggs. look at the Phillips bus fleet. Quirky, individualistic, boot-strapping and entrepreneurial, Clive Phillips started his business in 1952 with two second-hand buses. Based in Shiptonthorpe the Phillips area of operation was largely in the East Riding of Yorkshire. By 1960 the fleet comprised 26 buses, and by 1971 it had grown to 42 vehicles. Author, Stuart Emmett, describes the buses as ‘variable, to say the least’, this was because they came from numerous sources and were never bought new.
Buses were regularly delicensed in the summer, and others bought for spares. Withdrawn vehicles were rarely sold after their hard-working lives, as pictured in many of the photos here, and instead were put out to graze, rust, or were plundered for spares, in the fields behind the company premises. Some of the book illustrations show this enthusiasts’ Shangri-La in its shambolic heyday. As the years went by, council boundary reorganisations and economic realities took their toll on this operator, and Clive Phillips retired in 1988 aged 67, selling out to the East Yorkshire Motor Group. The fields were cleared, with the majority of the vehicles going for scrap, and an era was over.
A map illustrating the East Yorkshire stage bus routes from 1954 is given.
5 black & white and 79 colour photographs. 56 pages.