I was pleased to see the 50th anniversary of the sale of the Gosport & Fareham Omnibus Company to the National Bus Company marked by your Past & Present feature last month, but I have to correct your assertion that the Provincial identity ‘vanished into an enlarged Hants & Dorset’.
Placed under the management of Hants & Dorset in 1970, Provincial unusually, perhaps uniquely for a subsidiary of its size within NBC, retained its identity, livery (green, rather than H&D red) and distinct fleetnumbering scheme from 1970 through to 1983 when both the Gosport & Fareham Omnibus Company and the Fareham operations of Hants & Dorset were combined in the newly established Provincial Bus Company.
Hants & Dorset’s Fareham-based fleet had even gained Provincial Joint Services branding on its poppy red livery when the local Market Analysis Project scheme was implemented in 1980. Thus the Provincial name, latterly as People’s Provincial and First Provincial, outlasted Hants & Dorset by some 20 years until First abolished local fleetnames in the early years of this century.
Incidentally, Iain MacGregor was fortunate to capture Deutz-engined Guy 61 on film, as later in the month it l…
