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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011 People are still asking when The Bus Up the Dale may be ready for publication—and we still aren’t quite sure. This book was originally conceived as a brief history of the fondly-remembered Swaledale bus company, Percival Brothers (Coaches), Ltd ; since it gradually began to develop into a Grand Universal History of Every Bus in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale Ever, it’s taken somewhat longer than we ever expected, or intended (or wanted). We have found that the best way to speed things up is to fill Reuben with coffee and cake, but volunteers are not always available—like Paddington Bear, he needs looking after. Meanwhile, we believe ALL the red boxes (down each side of this page) are now in working order as links to further pages (such as they are). That includes the all-important “Contact Us” box on the right—we’re always highly delighted when people make use of that : please feel free, especially if you think you may possess additional information or have a story to tell. The Percival’s slide shows originally suggested by Helen Bainbridge of the Swaledale Museum, and delivered by Reuben Frankau in his own inimitable style, have now finished. It isn’t often that the Museum has to invite a guest speaker back to repeat the same talk, but such was the level of interest in Percival’s ! And every time—both at the Museum and at other venues— contributions from those attending added materially to our information. We’re extremely grateful to them, and to Helen for her encouragement and support in the earlier stages of this project. We have also been wonderfully fortunate in the support and co-operation of locals with long memories, and present-day relations of the characters who ran the buses—a few of whom we have only just succeeded in tracing. Thanks to these people, when The Bus Up the Dale finally appears in print, it will be much much more than a collection of bus photographs and old timetables. One reason for the continuing delay in completion of the book is the difficulty of finding the time, energy, and petrol required to go round gathering people’s recollections and archive materials. Part III of the Percival’s feature in Vintage Roadscene finally appeared in that magazine’s May 2011 edition. Reuben’s various pieces on Swaledale family firms, published in Vintage Roadscene in 2010 and 2011, were all kindly commissioned by the Deputy Editor, David Hayward. David has long been an enthusiastic and invaluable supporter of this project. We were hoping to put together a little something on the Week-End Leave coach services from Catterick Camp, which are remembered by many former National Servicemen, but with a recent change of Editor the magazine seems to have moved on. Never mind—we have plenty of other fish to fry ! Those who can get Reuben to answer his front door confirm that it is now possible to move freely round his house without stumbling over teetering stacks of paperwork (gasp ! ) and that the “working draft” of Chapter I is now twice as long as it was. Yes, folks—with the benefit of fresh information and improved organization (and weapons-grade Arabica) some serious progress is being made right now. We hope to receive a working lap-top shortly, which will assist with further research. For various reasons (like, we’ve forgotten how to upload pictures...), we’re still keeping the information and photographs on this site to a modest minimum for the time being. We want the information to be accurate and fair (some previous Swaledale local history efforts have caused a lot of bad feeling in this regard), while with photographs there does arise the issue of respecting and protecting people’s copyright. Some copyright-holders are pretty laid back, but some are not, and they do have their reasons. The book, The Bus Up the Dale, was to have included a chapter on the Percivals’ shop at Gunnerside. As research continued, it became inescapably apparent that the grocery, cartage and agricultural side of Lodge Percival’s business encompassed more than enough local history to fill a book on its own. James Percival suggested this second book could be marketed as a companion volume to the first, and called “The Shop Up the Dale”; however, the working title is currently Swaledale Life in the 1930s. It is intended that both of these publications will appeal to anyone with an interest in Swaledale, but transport buffs may wish to bear in mind that there’ll be less about buses in the latter volume. |
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