THE M & D AND EAST KENT BUS CLUB

 

HISTORY OF THE CLUB

 

For the Club's Jubilee, a number of articles were published as supplements to the news sheets. The first of these was issued with the July 2002 issue, our 600th news sheet. The text of this is reproduced below. This was accompanied by a four page photo spread featuring some photos of buses in service in 1952 and their current day equivalents. This can be downloaded as an Adobe Acrobat document by clicking here. (this is a large file 1.8 Mb so may take a while to download) Note a correction to this - the photo of DKT 18 should be credited to Ron Bristow

Club Tours (written by Derek Jones and published in news sheet 601)

Early Years (written by Don Vincent and published in news sheet 602)

Club Publications (written by Derek Jones and published in news sheet 603)

Vehicle Preservation (written by Nicholas King and published in news sheet 605)

Club News-Sheet : a brief history

The News-Sheet which members receive today has come a long way over the past fifty years, though still (we hope) reflecting Don Vincent's vision of 1952, as will be described in a subsequent article.

The first five News-Sheets were handwritten single-sided 5" by 5" slips of paper.  From January 1953 (issue 6) the format altered to a typed 8" x 5" single-sided sheet.  The first duplicated News-Sheet was in November 1953 (issue 16), and from January 1954 (issue 18) quarto paper (10" x 8") was adopted, doubling the capacity.  A further change from January 1957 (issue 54) was the introduction of foolscap paper (13" x 8").

Until the end of 1960, the News-Sheet was issued on the 1st of the dated month; from January 1961 (issue 102) this was altered to the first Tuesday of the month.  The typical content would be a few paragraphs on each of M&D and East Kent, occasionally a note about Maidstone Corporation (and, in the earlier years, Chatham & District and Hastings & District), and current Club notices.  Sometimes there would be coverage of coach operators such as Timpson's or Margo's, even passing notes on the London Transport scene in the Bexley area, where the Club was then based.  The page would be completed, if space remained, by a typical garage allocation.  From May 1961 (issue 106) the sheet was usually double-sided.

Throughout this period Don Vincent edited the News-Sheet, handing over to Paul Hollingsbee in April 1966 (issue 165).  From April 1967 (issue 177) the News-Sheet appeared in the middle of the month, usually allowing details of vehicle movements at the start of the month to be included (although full fleet allocations were not published at this period).  In August 1967 Nicholas King was appointed as Editorial Assistant.  July 1969 (issue 204) saw the first four-side News-Sheet.  From January 1970 (issue 210) a bold printed heading was added and four sides gradually became the norm.  Further barriers were broken with a six-side issue in July 1971 (issue 228) and an eight-sider in August 1971 (issue 230).  From April 1972 (issue 237) the front-page heading was printed in colour.

In October 1972 (issue 243) Nicholas King prepared his first News-Sheet, comprising ten sides, taking over as Editor in the following month after Paul Hollingsbee's final issue.  Increased coverage of vehicle allocations, route details (including route workings) and smaller operators, coupled with periods of considerable activity in the operators covered, led to the first twelve-side News-Sheet in April 1973 (issue 249), fourteen sides in May 1973 (issue 250), sixteen sides in April 1976 (issue 285) and eighteen sides in May 1977 (issue 298).

Duplication and despatch remained under Paul Hollingsbee's direction at Maidstone up to the spring of 1980.  The wax stencils were, for several years, typed at Folkestone and sent up to Maidstone by the parcel service on route 10, though there was one famous occasion when they had to be retrieved from Ashford garage, having been left by the driver on a vehicle which had been changed over there for mechanical reasons.  Normally the final pages were completed on a Tuesday, duplicated and despatched on the Thursday evening, and on members' doormats on the Saturday.

Nicholas King and Paul Hollingsbee moved from Kent at the start of the decade, leading to new production arrangements.  For a short while Ian Paterson hosted the despatch session before a new team was set up during 1980 at Tunbridge Wells with Melvyn Durrant at Crowborough handling the duplicator and Mick Comfort running the despatch team, which operated in rotation at a number of helpers' local addresses.

In November 1980 (issue 340) the first illustrated page appeared.  Its subjects make for nostalgic reflection.  M&D showed suburban Leyland-National 2901 on route 929 at Swanley, new Dennis Dominator 5302 leaving Chatham Pentagon on the 146 to Warren Wood, and Leyland Leopard 3442 on route 417 at Brenzett.  East Kent had AEC Reliance/Plaxton coach 8139 (then allocated to M&D at Silverhill) at Hastings Coach Station (with the ex-Guy trolleybus booking office in the background), Leyland-National 1553 at New Romney Garage on the 814 to Appledore Heath, and Leyland Atlantean/ECW 7011 on the 94 at Lydd Church.  Maidstone Borough Council had ex-Lancaster Leyland Leopard/Seddon 229 on the 86 at Maidstone Cannon, and there was a view of East Kent's Seabrook garage, which had closed that September after standing for almost fifty years on the site of the former Sandgate station at the end of the branch railway line from Sandling.  Illustrated pages henceforth became regular every three months or so, depending on the availability of prints and of space.  Usually they have appeared towards the front of the News-Sheet - not to emulate a certain tabloid newspaper, but because they have to be prepared and page-numbered a week ahead of the main News-Sheet, when it can still be very unclear what the final size of the issue will be.

In January 1981 (issue 342) a new record was set when the News-Sheet ran to 18 sides.  Because this was the maximum allowable within the 60g postal weight limit, a further four sides of independent operators' notes were published separately as a supplement available on application before being repeated in the following month's issue when space became available.  1981 was to see the largest annual News-Sheet content of 196 sides, reflecting the considerable turmoil at the peak of the Market Analysis Project period, including the chronicling of large numbers of vehicles released to subsequent owners.

January 1983 (issue 366) saw a 20-side News-Sheet.  The continuing strain on resources - two duplicators had had to be cannibalised into one following frequent breakdowns - led Management Committee to accept Mick Comfort's offer to produce a trial News-Sheet in May 1984 (issue 382) by offset-litho.  Following favourable reception, production was converted to this method from January 1985 (issue 390), though not before a 28-side issue had been produced in August 1984 (issue 385), remaining a record to this day.

The change to offset-litho allowed the gradual introduction of graphics and other improvements, and were further enhanced by a changeover from typewriter to word-processing in August 1985 (issue 397).  Up to this time, it had generally been necessary for successive Editors to prepare a fully-typed draft of the News-Sheet before adjusting this to size, trimming back material to an even number of sides or adding filler items if they were available, and trying to incorporate breaking news as it emerged during this process before re-typing the whole News-Sheet onto master pages.  Now it became possible to save time by typing straight to screen, moving text around or using different sizes of typeface to fit the available space.

The present style of News-Sheet appeared in January 1986 (issue 402), converted to A4 size with a masthead comprising a line drawing (initially prepared by Tony Smith, and from 1994 by Don Vincent).  Coverage of deregulation led to the 1986 News-Sheets reaching 192 sides, the second-highest total recorded.  A quick glance through that year's issues reminds us of some of the more transient operators who emerged at deregulation.  Amongst many events of this period, who remembers now the Hastings & District fleet of 70 minibuses (when they eventually all got into service), Barrett of Mongeham operating Deal town services on Sundays, Chisholm of Ramsgate starting their network of Thanet local services, New Enterprise's local routes at Tonbridge, Rose of Walderslade operating the 130 and 130A over Boxley Downs, or Trident of Chatham running on the 197 from Chatham to Lower Stoke and the 326 from Chatham to Sittingbourne, to say nothing of some of the position-protecting routes and frequencies registered by M&D and East Kent?  Many more operators emerged during the following few years, some to last more successfully than others.  Very often these secured county council contracts through offering lowest prices which proved in the event to be unsustainable, the major operators then being called upon to step into the breach for a few months until again losing the routes to further newcomers.

There is a separate story to be told about the number of different operators who were to be seen on some routes until the situation became rather more settled during the 1990s, not to mention "bus war" events, of which the Bygone Buses episodes in Maidstone and Topline Hastings were perhaps the most memorable amongst many.

New computer equipment from April 1992 (issue 477) allowed a more professional finish compared to the dot-matrix printer which had been in use since 1985; the printer was again upgraded to a laser-jet model in July 1995 (issue 516).  Meanwhile, a two-sided colour illustrated sheet had been produced in March 1994 to mark the 500th News-Sheet.  In June 1992, for the only time since 1972, the News-Sheet was headed in black with a one-off line drawing and illustrated page to mark the demise of Boro'line Maidstone.

Mick Comfort had to abandon local printing at Tunbridge Wells during the summer of 1994, and there had been increasing difficulties in recruiting enough helpers for the despatch team.  After five months during which printing was carried out locally at a commercial printer, the final Tunbridge Wells despatch session was held in December 1994 (issue 509) and the complete task of printing and despatching the News-Sheet was placed with Kithead Ltd at Droitwich Spa on a commercial basis from January 1995 (issue 510).

Since then, little has changed, though new computing equipment from May 2002 (issue 598) has enabled further refinements in preparation (after a somewhat arduous process of conversion) which will now be considered by Management Committee as the basis for a possible complete makeover from the start of 2003.

Few would recognise in the current News-Sheet the seeds which had been sown by that first handwritten scrap of 5" by 5" paper in August 1952.  As your Editor approaches his thirtieth anniversary in post, he reflects particularly on the foundations and standards established by his predecessors, Don Vincent (1952 to 1966) and Paul Hollingsbee (1966 to 1972), and on the contributions which have been made over those fifty years by countless members, contacts in other societies and in the industry (not least amongst the operators which we cover), as well as by those who have worked behind the scenes to convert the typed pages into the polished News-Sheets which continue to arrive with members each month.  The scope of change in the local industry recorded over those fifty years as one thumbs through earlier News-Sheets is breathtaking, and it would be a brave soul who attempted to predict where we shall be five, ten or twenty, let alone fifty, years from now.