IT’S A book 50 years in the making and it’s going to be invaluable in 50 years time.
Early Independents of the Bracknell, Crowthorne and Wokingham Area is by Woosehill author and speaker Paul Lacey.
It’s the second of a trilogy devoted to the Thames Valley bus and coach operators and details a mixture of one-man outfits to more enduring concerns.
The self-published book is packed with pictures and helps form a social history of this neck of the woods, showcasing how public transport helped people get to work, school and leisure activities, as well as days out to the coast and other attractions, all at a pioneering time when the majority of people didn’t have a car.
For Paul, it is the culmination of many years of research and his 17th book on transport-related subjects.
“While it was 50 years in the making, from the decision that I was going to bring the book out to putting it all together took a couple of years,” he says. “Having done all the research, I didn’t want these stories to be forgotten. It’s social history, an essential element of local history.”
The expansion to the transport network has many reasons, including a baby boom meant additional school transport was needed, while the end of the First World War saw men came back from the trenches with practical experience of motor vehicles.
“This is why you find so many companies starting from 1919 onwards in any history you pick up,” Paul says. “Many of them used to be domestic servants, but they didn’t want to go back into it, they wanted to be their own boss.”
And some of this is personal to Paul, who is approaching 70.
“I was sent to secondary school by bus when I was 11. In 1962, I had to travel from Bracknell to Windsor every day and that got me interested in the buses I travelled on. There were still some independent operators in Windsor and I saw coaches from other parts of the country in the riverside car park.
“I realised there was a whole world of this … and I matured from being a bus spotter to an historian.”
The books, Paul says, came from realising no one else had written on the subject before and “I wanted to sit down and read about it”.
It is something of a busman’s holiday: Paul used to be a school transport officer for Wokingham
for 10 years, and he admits his “deep knowledge of the area made it easier to do”.
Like any author, Paul was delighted to hold the book in his hands.
“It’s always a great thrill to smell the freshly painted volumes,” he says.
“I’ve had a good reaction to it.”
The book is available for £15 and there are copies in Wokingham’s Waterstones and the Town Hall, when they reopen.
For more details, log on to www.paullaceytransportbooks.co.uk/
