EASTBOURNE DAVE IN ACTION REAR VIEWS

The Thamesdown / Swindon visit a week ago, remember Sunshine, what a treat

rare shots of Dave in action by Rob Gibbs of Sheerness.
another bust day, very humid, dull. I finally got the Syrian transfer done and rattled off the Brighton DVD, tonight hope to have Eastbourne and Malta done but out in the garden in a minute while its dry. Last night I was at Three greyhounds, bikers night but outside, thousands of bikes in car park, they took the disabled car spaces which rankled Mandy. George round the Mere, Richard Guinea Pig man and Alec Jock moan a lot in attendance! Landlord looked happy with taking from bikers do.

ANOTHER GLOOMY DAY BUT ITS LIVERPOOL

Salisbury last Friday, almost sunny, wow!

Swindon is done and Eastbourne and Brighton will follow in quick succession then I'll do Malta and Liverpool before starting on John Bishops trip to the Netherlands. I'll pop a copy of my book on EBay then those who want can order from yet another route, signed copies are of course available, let me know any particular dedication you want.

Hi folks out in Kyoto, Japan, not sure who it is but they are sure regular readers. I'll try and put a few more clips on YouTube, tonight I usually get dragged off to the three greyhounds about 9pm which puts paid to any editing late on, life's a bitch eh.Most sites still say book not out till 1st Sept but I've oodles of copies fort you.

Nearly time to start thinking about Christmas adverts for magazines, still no sign of summer, given up on days off this weekend, forecast best to east so may do East Anglia or Peterborough, who knows. We have attempted to book for Sheffield Meadow hall rally but its proving difficult. In Liverpool got stopped by Arriva Safety officer who asked why I was filming buses, although he certainly had no right, authority etc he was pleasant so I didn't mind, I suppose I could have wound him up by saying I was from the government and we were banning their fleet of old bangers, well bit past their sell by dates, still the others don't look that sparkling, not one 08 reg bus seen.

Hassles getting part payment through to travel agency in Syria for Octobers trip, wouldn't bother again, even if its good what a lot of hassle. Our friends in Guangzhou are going to meet us whilst on our China trip next Easter.

NO TIME TO STAND AND STARE

Another busy week with awful gloomy weather, looks doubtful if we'll get away as planned next weekend if the sky doesn't improve, another chance the back end of the next week before Heaton park rally. A wonderful loan of some amazingly rare 1946 footage received this week from a contact at Lathalmond, Manchester Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Liverpool, an Auckland transport authority trip to the UK, although what they expected to see goodness only knows, just 15 minutes from 16mm originals, amazing transport footage, my favourite was Manchester Piccadilly and Hyde Rd bus depot.

Another kind gesture, a friend from Kent spotted me at Eastbourne, Robert Gibbs took some rather splendid shorts of me camera and buses in a nice composition hopefully reproduced with this blog.( file too big)

We also met friends at Brighton earlier in the day. At the FOT at Hellingly a Maltese camera crew were making a documentary ( in the rain). This has provided a possible contact for more developments in Maltese material.

Last night I put the 1946 material unedited onto DVD for the owner, that took up a lot of the night, also finished plotting on some ancestors on Mandy's family tree. Caught up with some television and cut the lawns, stacked my book stock into the study and had a snooze.

Tonight I hope to get stick into some material from the weekend. John Bishop has kindly let us use his latest video from trips to Netherlands, Malta and Switzerland plus updates on Sussex which we can combine with our own material to give extended editions, John has captured many locations around Eastbourne plus Lewes and Uckfield.He was on the intra Express tour of Netherlands a couple of weeks ago and they saw numerous museum trams and the new Randstadrail lines plus all the usual street scenes and behind the doors depot views.

The Maltese coverage includes Gozo which I haven't done for quite a while.

Demand for the book looks like being steady, many of our customers have expressed interest, remember its not a bus book at all but my life story ( so far!) , warts and all.

A SMUDGE ON MY LENS AVAILABLE NOW

Eastbourne Saturday afternoon

A very busy weekend, we finally arrived home after midnight on Monday hence the lateness of the blog which PI prepares at work this morning. We travelled down to Wiltshire on Thursday and despite terrible weather en route it cleared up nicely as we arrived in Swindon and were treated royally by the Thamesdown management and entertained by Stuart Curwen our usual contact who ensures everyone possible is in a suitable party mood. Not only Thamesdown but also Stagecoach drivers seemed on top form and with lots of changes since out last visit the resulting programme should be of interest to many viewers.
It was lunchtime and we were due to collect sample stock of my book from rye Cromwell press at Trowbridge, it was too late to go to Bath as we had originally considered so we got to the print works around 2 pm. Horror, they had dispatched all the stock to the distribution agent, thankfully it had only gone 10 miles away to the carriers Frome depot and was recalled back with 30 minutes and we extracted the required stick. We stopped off in Salisbury on our way east and left there about 5 pm arriving down near Brighton before 8pm. We were up sharp and started filming in Brighton Saturday morning first thing in clear blue skies albeit a bit chilly, this was followed by Eastbourne, Mandy sat on the seafront, blustery but still sunny. There weren't many Cavendish buses around at the weekend but a good selection of Eastbourne's fleet, remember its all up for sale at present. Almost ghostly thinking about the years I'd stood there camera in hand and even back to childhood, hard to think that the worlds first municipal operator had ended up with a sad looking fleet mainly second-hand or more and up for the highest bidder. But also salutary to think that in 1903 someone was seeing his last bus and recalling the horse transport and the infernal combustion engines which scared the horses so. Saturday night was spent with John and Maureen Bishop and family at the Hellingly Festival Of Transport, in the beer tent no less. The next morning it was grim weather for the book launch, with dire weather and small attendance we made a start but only slow, still wee had got there at last and with good company the day passed, Tracey entered the lady and vehicle competition with her mini and 80s dress, the sun came out finally this late afternoon although there were few onlookers left. A meal out ion Sunday at Ardingly and then an early start Monday morning ( bank holiday) over to visit my sisters near Fareham in Hampshire where an over indulgence in cake and food in general has left my a little more rotund and aspiring to diet like mad.

SUNDAYS POST IF YOU CANT WAIT

Inverness last Saturday

a rare one for fire fans, rest at Lathalmond last Sunday

SATURDAYS BLOG NO PEEPING BEFORE THEN

all Inverness last Saturday

FRIDAYS BLOG EARLY

Aviemore
the rest are Inverness, all last Saturday

GOOD OLD SUSSEX BY THE SEA

Nowt so important this weekend as the BOOK!!

Berwick last Friday afternoon on way to Lathalmond



Aviemore depot, experimental ticket machine bus? Outside old Highland / Rapsons depot, last Saturday

I thought I'd better focus on getting our Syrian Visas sorted out this week, the form was a bit vague and it asked for a letter from employer, difficult for Mandy, I hesitate to put PMP ! I phoned them, very nice lady who said it is just a formality and they are very flexible and not to worry too much! Still its another thing to get sorted.

Well I hope you are all going to try and make the effort to come and see me at the book launch at the Festival Of Transport at Hellingly in Sussex this Sunday 24th August. We'll be under cover in the marquee so no matter what the weather throws at us, possibility of doing a live reading but I'm not sure if I'll have an audience. Its taken a few years sweat and blood to get to this stage, I've also got some flyers to send out which people can either order direct from or request gifted copies to friends and loved ones ( enemies perhaps if they don't like it). The actual publication date remains 1st September but you could be amongst the first to get a copy, I'll be doing the bus devotees launch at Heaton Park in September and Showbus for the southern counties, late September, remember though it isn't a transport book, just one bus photo, well another does have buses in it, well what did you expect. Then there's me as a bonny baby and innocent school child, so cute, wonder where it all went wrong, yes buy the book find out for yourselves.

Perhaps you'll get a double dose of blogs from Scotland which will keep you going until I get back next Tuesday with tales from the weekend. It was late last night when I finally found a batch of cine films I'd borrowed from John Bishop then tucked away for safety as I'd forgotten to give them to him at Cobham in the spring. It's been such a long time, I'd better remember to go and tidy Marion's grave at the cemetery in Old Town, she would have been proud of the book and waylaid everyone with it produced with a flourish from her handbag.

I'll have Lathalmond's cover ready tonight, I've already had a flurry of orders for Inverness. There are enormous changes about to happen on EBay which is a pain I could do without but we are going to upgrade to a higher level shop and should have more visibility on the searches although shop inventory is going to vanish, just sell it now status. Multiple item listing may save relisting every time I sell, its at no extra cost, in fact the more I list the cheaper it will be relative to the present position on EBay but there is bound to be all sorts of traumas.

We are travelling south in Mandy's car and whilst with John and Maureen I hope to cover a large quantity from John's video output this season including recent Netherlands visits with heaps of museum tram and trolleys plus current scene. Don't forget I welcome comments and feedback ,
our e mail as ever dave@pmpvideo.fsnet.co.uk

The web site http://www.pmpvideo.com/

CAR BACK TO THE GARAGE YET AGAIN

some bus and lorry scenes from Lathalmond last Sunday



we have both been very busy today, I had to take the car to Manchester, it will need as repair as someone has nudged it when parking and dislodged bumper assembly. New plastic boxes arrived for DVD stock which will take slightly less space, we'll use the old un's for sale stocks, specials like Scottish stock and our new truck rally stock. Staying at Newhaven Premier inn Friday after filming at Swindon then onwards perhaps Bath , pick up book. Saturday Brighton and Eastbourne.

GEORGE ROBERTS PEOPLES HERO

photos from my latest truck DVD on Egypt 1996
El Alamein museum

It was like autumn getting up this morning, dark, cloudy, windy and of course wet, this doesn’t bode well for my intended extra days next weekends but at least the book launch / signing will be inside. I'm still chasing to find when I can pick up copies and also waiting for flyers to be printed allowing people to order or gift signed copies. When I have a couple of days away the hits on the blog plummet for a while, I do try and warn that I'm out often at weekends, thus weekdays are the best to pick up on what's happened.
This time I interrupt Scottish coverage to show the cover photos grabbed from the video of our last truck film Egypt 1996. I've a couple of urgent DVDs to make replacing missing or damaged masters then I'll get Lathalmond done, Inverness was finished last night. I also managed to get all my magazine adverts sent out between catching up on the TV soaps. We've ordered 30 new plastic boxes for our rally stock of DVDs. In advance of a round of truck event attendance for 2009 we'll use some of the old ones to host a special truck stock, in fact we'd be interested in hearing from anyone who would like to promote PMP at truck events as time is obviously at a premium for us, since starting advertising in truck mags its really taken off and youtube hits exceed anything else we have on the site, mind you I think the conversion from Youtube hit to purchase is chronic
We had a neutral review on an Ebay transaction, only the second since we started which has knocked us down to 99.5%, not bad you may think but unjustified on both occasions, indeed each was auction rather from the shop. My opinion of ebay auctions continues to plummet, wretched affairs and the seller now has little defence against poor review blackmail, supposedly banned by Ebay but rampant.
Hoorah, the best comes last as it has now been confirmed that I can pick the book up from the printers in Trowebridge Friday afternoon ready for the launch on Sunday, so if you come along to the Hellingly Festival Of Transport you can get a signed copy.

A long amusing and sometimes sad letter from George Roberts, I'll try and scan it as George isn't of the email generation, another old soldier bus enthusiast treated shoddily by the British police gestapo, belive me my friends in China you have more freedom than we do these days!Last one to leave the country turn out the lights!