Overview

The historic county of Surrey, stretching from the Thames-side towns such as Richmond and Kingston westwards to Guildford and Godaiming and southwards to Dorking. Reigate and Redhill, is one of contrasis. To the north and east if forms a continuation, increasingly, of the greater London area but to the south and west it is much more rural, dotted with pretly vilages and historic towns. Despite its nature, however. London Transport, either through its red Central Area buses in places like Richmond and Kingston or green Country Area buses in places like Guildford and Reigate, provided the bulk of bus services in the county and in the area surrounding it. Much of this was historical, a reflection of the constituents of the London Passenger Transport Board when it was established in 1933, and undoubtedly as time wore on it become increasingly anachronistic. However, it was not until the creation of London Country in 1970 that the final spill came and even then the Central Area services continued to operate largely unchanged, although there were minor and subtle changes in individual route responsibilities. Albelt now living in Devon, Roy Hobbs is a notive of Surrey, growing up to the south of London, and during the 1950s and 1960s he exhaustively recorded the changing transport scene in the county. His railway photographs are well known through his own and other authors' books; his bus photographs, used to a limited extent in other authors' books, are less familiar. Drawing upon his own extensive collection and those of other noted bus photographers, he provides in London Buses Around Surrey a colourful portrait of the era when both Country and Central areas operated into and around Surrey. Incorporating some 85 Images, the book is a graphic reminder of the period when green Routemasters were an everyday sight, when red RTs still provided an essential part of the everyday scene and when the classic RF single-deckers were still relatively new. For all those interested in London Transport and for all who know Surrey in the period, this book is an exercise in pure nostalgla, taking the reader back more than three decades to on age when the car was less dominant and the bus represented an essential means of transport for countless thousands.

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9780711030015

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Roy Hobbs now lives in Exeter in Devon but was brought up in Redhill, In Surrey. Known primarily as a railway photographer, he also recorded buses in and around his home town, and many of his bus photographs have appeared in bus books from Ian Allan Publishing. Whilst this is his first book on buses for the company, he has complied several railway-oriented titles for the company over the years. These books include On Great Western Lines and On Southern Lines.

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