Title: Here Comes the Eden
Authors: Stuart Gray
Publisher: Venture Publications
ISBN: 978-1-905304-82-0
Specification: 235mm x 165mm,
48pp, softback
Price: £10
There is frequently a downbeat conclusion to the books we review about long established independent operators, which either sell out to their dominant neighbours or collapse in a mire of debt.
Not so The Eden in Co. Durham. For although the original business did sell out after 68 years, a new enterprise acquired its name soon after. If you knew no better, you might imagine it had never gone away. Stuart Gray has been interested in The
Eden from childhood, a fascination boosted by his first sighting of an X-registered Duple Dominant III-bodied Volvo B58 grant coach with trapezoid windows on one of the local routes in 1981/82. He has tuned into the stories of those with earlier memories to piece together a concise, well written account of a story that begins in 1927, complementing it with a wide selection of photographs. Brothers George and Bill Summerson started their service in West Auckland 15 years after the Emmersons established what grew into OK Motor Services in nearby Bishop Auckland. The upheaval of road service licensing in 1931 found them se…
