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Some memories of Amos of Belc=
hamp
St Paul (near
Contributed
by Alan A Watkins.
Firs=
t,
some thoughts prompted by a photo of
T=
his
vehicle was new to Amos, Belchamp St Paul, with
wooden seats in November 1944 (I was two at the time) and this was a priori=
ty
vehicle authorised and supplied by the then Min=
istry of
War to an operator in the wilds of nowhere who accidentally became importan=
t in
Whitehall because they were major contractors during World War Two firstly =
in the
building of the makeshift airfields for the Spitfires of Essex and Suffolk =
and
were major transporters of staff to and from and of those who constructed
them. Priority applicants.
This is Betty, named after the daughter Mr and =
Mrs Amos lost to pneumonia in 1943 aged three or four=
I
think and she perpetuated that name through the more p=
eacefu
post war lanes in this wonderfully rural part of the world (and it still is)
until the early 60's by which time she had, through war and peace, clocked =
up
over a million miles "without much trouble" which is going some in
that rural enclave.
I cannot remember who he sold it to but I do know he regretted selling &quo=
t;her"
late into his life. When I first met Bill Amos (1970ish I think) he t=
ook
me up the stairs of the garage to the loft where was a complete set of spare
seats for Betty and headlamps and a spare gearbox and various other bits and
pieces.
"I wish I'd never sold her. Bloody stupid thing to do" he s=
aid
and there were tears in his eyes which I didn't understand at the time but =
do
now.
All her "spare parts" were still up in the loft but sadly, by the=
n, she
was no longer there.
To and fro airfields in the war years, to and fro
Mr and Mrs Amos
The company was started by his father with horse drawn carrier services int=
o
I also have an invoice from Bill's dad to Premier Travel confirming that he
would provide a coach on a hiring in extra - "the charge I will leave =
to
you". Yeah, right.
Both Mr and Mrs
Amos a joy to deal with. Lovely honest cou=
ntry
folk. They used Bell Punch stock tickets but I printed their first a=
nd
last titled tickets headed AMOS COACHES. He kept driving into his 80'=
s.
Anyway Bill DID regret selling Betty and I would claim to have seen the tea=
rs
in his eyes to prove it.
Poor old girl. Over a million miles in tha=
t part
of the world is going some!
It is just a piece of machinery of course...........
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And more recollections:
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S=
adly the
OWB was not a survivor [the PSVC publication PF6 has it as withdrawn
6/64, to Fontenay Fruit Farms, Wickham Bishops
(non-PSV)]. Billy did try to buy her back
several years after she was sold but by then she had gone for scrap - somet=
hing
for which he appeared not to have forgiven himself.
The company started as JW Amos (Billy's father) as a horse drawn carrier in=
to
that ceased sometime in the middle 1950's I believe. The steady income
right to the end was school contracts which required two or three vehicles =
and
the timings of the stage services were such that these could be fitted in
"around" the stage services.
After the death of Billy's father, at some age in the 60's, the company bec=
ame
W.G Amos (T/A Amos Coaches). There were also two lorries which did
occasional local haulage work mostly for the farms but which were at their
busiest in the Sugar Beet season transporting loads to both Felsted and Kin=
gs
Lynn. They also held a couple of modest summer excursion licences to such as Clacton & Walton, Southend (f=
or the
Illuminations plus an Excursion Licence to Ipswich Town FC.
The pace in the Belchamps (Otten
and Walter as well as
Bury St Edmunds). Otherwise it was always "one person
operated". They used Bell Punch stock tickets until I began to supply =
them
with their first ever titled tickets. They ordered about once every s=
ix months
in very small quantities.
I used to deliver to them because it was a lovely excuse for an afternoon o=
ut
in a beautiful and remote part of the world. With variations the stage
route to
lump of mud in the road you just steered round it. That was then.
Both were very active in the local community. He was the churchwarden=
for
many years (as his father had been) and Mrs A w=
as a
member of the "Flower Committee" who did the arrangements. =
She
was a most charming and thoughtful lady. Billy told me one afternoon =
that
the most money the firm had ever made was during the war years - the
construction of the airfield and then contract services to places like RAF
Shepherds Grove (near Bury) which was the "paperwork" headquarter=
s of
that region of East Anglia and which needed civilian clerks in some numbers=
.
Mrs A thoughtfully observed how ironic it was t=
hat
the War
destroyed some but benefitted others. In the time that I knew them all
the "staff" were part time - either re=
tired
folk or agricultural workers making a few quid on the side by driving as and
when required. For several years after the war they also had work tra=
nsporting
former German prisoners of war to and from the "Land
Settlements", mostly to work on local farms. Premier Travel had =
similar
work at Abingdon diverting some Tuesday journeys to the "Land Settleme=
nt"
on Service 13 from Linton to Saffron Walden.
It really is an age gone forever. As I've recalled before Mrs A rang me one day with a ticket order and politely
asked if I could make the fares on my punch tickets larger "because our
driver who does
They had their local private hire work - the Sunday Sch=
ool
outings, the WI trips. Throughout the war years and into the middle 6=
0's
they also got "hired in", primarily by Premier Travel for summer
reliefs on Service 5 (Birmingham-Clacton) or to held with things like the
annual outing of the Haverhill Co-operative Society Ltd (a day at the seasi=
de like
Walton on Naze, Clacton or Southend) which, in the days of low capacity
vehicles, often required 30 or more. Another regular source of income=
in
the "Golden Age" of buses in East Anglia were duplicates to and f=
rom
London Kings X on the two services via Thaxted operated by the splendidly n=
amed
Barnabas Kingston Jennings (BK Jennings) of Ashen which is just down the ro=
ad
through the twisty lanes. There was also occasional work for Mr Chinery of Corona Coac=
hes at
Amos was a real "country bus" which I just caught the end of.&nbs=
p;
It really was the end of an era and I think I was conscious of that. Billy
simply retired - there was no one to take it over and I imagine they made s=
uch
little profit that no one would have been interested in buying the
business. Obviously they made enough to live on (the school contracts
probably guaranteed that) but I got the impression that they led a very sim=
ple
existence and had done all their lives At =
the
time I knew them they certainly hadn't then got around to acquiring a
television and I can't imagine they felt a pressing need to do
so. Very few used the bus service to
And, by then, even the farmworkers had their ow=
n cars
and could go to
The Amos "garage" was a huge wooden barn like structure (and, for=
all
I know, it may well have originally been just that) with the spare parts
"loft" upstairs. In between school contracts buses were oft=
en just
left in the road by the village green (no parking restrictions then, or now=
, so
far as I know) and such road users as materialized just circumnavigated
them. In those days it was the "Small Society" and Billy Am=
os
and his forbears, including "Betty", we=
re
an intrinsic part of that fabric.
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T=
o read
Alan Osborne’s comments on the end of operations by Amos, click here.