College Record 2019

Cyprus, Iraq and Kathmandu. His final overseas photograph in the catalogue is from
Famagusta in September 1983.
Increasingly from the early 1970s, he took photographs of ‘Bristol’ buses bought by the
widening range of British operators who chose them once previous restrictions on their
sale were removed. So, new locations began to figure in the catalogue; he would still search
out new deliveries, and visit new places where second-hand ‘Bristols’ could be found. He
must have enjoyed going to bus rallies where preserved ‘Bristols’ often gathered. Indeed, it
was from one such occasion, in Bristol itself on 16 June 1987, that we have his last catalogue
entry, showing a double decker that had evaded his camera on several previous visits to its
second-hand home in Pembrokeshire.
Peter’s intention was visually to record his beloved Bristol-made buses as carefully as possible.
Usually there would be views of both three-quarter nearside and offside, sometimes also
frontal or rear views. Ideally the picture would be as uncluttered as possible: no obstructing
human beings, a minimum of background. For the bus enthusiast, this can be admirable and
valuable. Perhaps the opportunities to make them documents of social history were underplayed.
But they do contain messages if one is prepared to look for them. The South African
single deckers almost all display their owner’s fleet-names bilingually, generally in Afrikaans on
the offside, English on the nearside, as was then the practice there. The Indian-owned ‘Bristols’
were deliberately worked hard because their owners were under recurrent threat from
being squeezed out of business by local or state corporations – which indeed took place in
Durban in the 1970s. That’s why he saw only one there in 1964.
MEMORIES OF WOLFSON
WOLFSON.OX.AC.UK
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