BOOK REVIEWS: Edwards Coaches – A Hundred Years

2025 marks 100 years of the Edwards family’s involvement in bus and coach operations. It all started in March 1925 with the granting of a licence for a bus service from their home village of Beddau to Pontypridd. Fast forwarding through several generations and business models brings us to Llantrisant based Edwards Coaches led by Mike Edwards and operating over 250 vehicles, ranging from local service buses to high specification coaches. The current business was incorporated in August 2000 and much of the brief history is devoted to the company’s subsequent rapid growth. Around 170 well presented images provide an overview of the fleet make up over the years, in colour from the 1970s too!

Many secondhand double-deckers have been owned for school services and for a period in the Noughties, their upper-deck front and rear windows were blanked out in an attempt to minimise the pupils’ anti-social behaviour. In 2013, Edwards Coaches achieved TV fame as comedian Rod Gilbert became one of their tour guides in his work experience series. Recommended.

Edwards Coaches – A Hundred Years by Simon Ingham is published by Amberley Publishing at £15.99. ISBN 9781398123571

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