Title: North Devon’s Buses from the 1960s
Author/Publisher: Keith Shayshutt
ISBN: 978-1-5272-6321-5
Specification: 300mm x 210mm, 100pp, softback
Price: £21.50
Title: Western National A Journey in Colour 1983-2003
Author: Andrew Bartlett
Publisher: Pen & Sword Transport
ISBN: 978-0-52675-506-3
Specification: 285mm x 225mm, 190pp, hardback
Price: £25
These illustrated books complement each other, with a small amount of overlapping content and a shared focus on the changing fortunes of the once mighty Western National.
Keith Shayshutt’s study of the north Devon network spans a longer period, from 1961 — a few years before he first ventured there from home in Essex on a family holiday — to the present day, commendably including the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on services operated this year.
Andrew Bartlett also became aware of Western National on holidays, visiting parts of its territory in 1971, 1975 and 1981. Recognising that few books focus on its later two copiously years — indeed there are still too few books on that period about many operators — he has focused on the 20 years from the National Bus Company’s four-way break-up of the company in January 1983, with Western …
