The people who gave Midland Red its direction and its drive
Midland Red and its People is Ashley Wakelin’s follow-up and companion book to Inside Midland Red and Midland Red Influence. This is a fascinating high quality Midland Red book.
To a bus enthusiast, the lure of a bus garage full of those iconic SOS or BMMO buses and coaches made the hours fly by. Whether you took down bus numbers, or photographed their very individual vehicles or premises, or whether your interest lay in timetables or engineering, the original Midland Red still has a fascination and a romance all of its own.
Midland Red and its People looks at those iconic buses and coaches over the years, developed in their experimental department, made in their own Central Works in Birmingham and operated at over thirty garages spread over a territory of some 12,000 square miles. But it was its people who gave Midland Red its direction and its drive. Some employees worked for Midland Red for a landmark 25 or 35 years, but others achieved an impressive 50 years of service. Imagine starting your career in 1918 when your daily sights would have been the final days of horse buses trotting along at a stately pace, and then in 1968, the last of the specialist Motorway Express coaches speeding along in the outside lane of the M1!
The foreword for Midland Red and its People is written by Alan Eatwell, who was Midland Red’s last Fitters Boy. The son of no ordinary Midland Red Inspector, he went on to a highly successful career in Engineering Management in the bus industry.
Hard back, 168 quality pages with over 270 photographs and illustrations, many professionally restored, and most not previously published.
All of Ashley’s books are ideal for ex-employees of Midland Red, anyone interested in social history or politics, and of course bus enthusiasts. The books are not all about bus numbers or technical detail — they are full of illustrated stories of real day-to-day life on the buses!
