The RCA-Serco/RAF Fylingdales Contract Buses, by Stuart Emmett

An enthusiast bus book with a difference with lots of lovely colour and black and white buses of the various contract vehicles that did the worker transport from Whitby, Pickering and Scarborough to RAF Fylingdales, the Cold War tracking station on the Yorkshire Moors better known as the Golf Balls. Although hardly a secret, being a distinctive local landmark and featuring on contemporary picture postcards for tourists, the work there was hush hush high security and all that so nobody except the entire local population knew about the contract buses. RCA, perhaps better known for its record label, built the site and managed it until a management buyout took over and adopted the Serco name. The book has a bit about how the buses were required to work, plenty of detail about which buses and companies were on the contract, and lots of looking back comments about how the buses were driven into the ground in the process. As with all such things from this period the research comes from information not ‘easily available’ so the book represents a ‘best efforts to date’ look at this fascinating operation.