The well-known Pennine Bus Service, which runs between Skipton and Giggleswick, also serving part of East Lancashire, was inaugurated at Skipton towards the end of 1925. The first timetable was based on the weekday routine of Miss Bertha McKell, a schoolteacher living at Gargrave, who taught at Coniston Cold. Bertha must arrive at school by 9am. Sadly, Norman Simpson, who ran Pennine Motors efficiently for many years, and who was the authority on its history, died last June. Dr Bill Mitchell, of Giggleswick, recounts tales of the bus company he gathered almost 30 years ago from the men who were in at the start of this enduring enterprise.

Pennine Motors was founded by two brothers, Arthur and Vic, who lived in Ermysted Street at Skipton. Having served in the Great War, they took up engineering. Their lives changed significantly when they visited Leyland Motors in Lancashire to acquire three Overland buses. Arthur selected the bright colour scheme – orange and black – seen on a bus parked in the Leyland yard.

That bus was used by the Leyland works football team!

The first Pennine bus was collected by Arthur Simpson and Jim Windle, who had married Rose, sister of the Simpson brothers. Details of the new service, along with timetable and details of fares, were published in the Craven Herald.

Jim, who drove the first bus, had suggested the name Pennine for the new firm. The name was robust and related to the “backbone of England”, in part of which the service would operate.

The bus – an Overland – had 14 wooden seats covered with oilcloth. Petrol was supplied in drums by Russian Oil Products. A bus used six gallons a day, at a cost per gallon of seven and a half pence. When Pennine began to use a manually-operated petrol pump, fuelling a bus was a weary process.

Where should the service start? Jim Windle parked on the setts outside Dobson’s, in Skipton High Street. The only passengers on the first run, apart from Bertha McKell, were two children. An anxious parent saw them onto the bus near Long Preston. They disembarked beside the Maypole Inn after travelling about half a mile.

Stretches of the main road from Skipton to Settle were narrow, strewn with loose stone and having flanking dykes for much of the way. With no official bus stops, the driver drew up beside any person who looked interested. The fare from Skipton to Gargrave was five pence (single) and eight pence (return) Albion Garage at Skipton was the main base for the new service and the firm also bought a garage near the Grouse Hotel, at Gargrave. Jim Wilson became the traffic manager. The Simpson brothers concentrated on keeping the buses roadworthy, while Harry Fletcher, who began work as a driver in 1926, was delighted to be paid £2.5s a week when many men were out of work.

The service became very popular and on occasion, the bus would creak with a load of more than 40 passengers. Some bravely stood on the running boards and leaned over the bonnet. Harry told me about one dark Saturday night when a policeman boarded an over-crowded bus at Long Preston and had to stand in a crush of passengers. More than 40 people were competing for 14 seats.

Some passengers, unseen by the policeman, were on the running board. When the bus stopped, these men appeared in the darkness to pay their fares. The policeman, keen to know how they had travelled, was told by a quick-witted driver: “They haven’t been riding; they’ve bin running at t’back.”

Two years after the start of the service, Giggleswick was featured nationally. The Astronomer Royal chose a site near the School Chapel to observe a total eclipse of the sun and Pennine Buses were used to transport policemen to and from the area.

At a time when agriculture was not prospering, many farmers travelled by bus, some having clogs on their feet. On market day at Settle, farmers’ wives and daughters, with laden ‘butter baskets’, occupied most of the seats. It was not unknown for a farmer, on his way to market, to deposit a calf, swathed in sacking, at the back of the bus. A sheep in transit was seen to be tethered to a back seat. Parcels of all shapes and sizes were carried by Pennine. The firm would, as they used to say, carry owt!

Fish and chips were ordered by villagers who met the 9pm bus out of Skipton. On reaching Settle, the bus driver would collect them – piping hot, with plenty of packing – from John Andrew’s shop in the Shambles. The orders were distributed on the return journey.

The Pennine service expanded, the work-a-day buses running to Ingleton and then to Morecambe. Harry daringly drove a day-trip from Barnoldswick to Rhyl. When he took a party of folk to Gretna Green, returning through the Lake District, the passengers were “fair capped” (surprised) because they’d never been that far before.

When I was invited by Harry Scott to join The Dalesman, I travelled regularly to and from Clapham until I was able to lodge at Austwick. I got to know the Pennine staff, including an inspector, the amiable Harold Dryden. He told me some fascinating tales. One of them concerned a farmer who, keen to get home for milking-time, asked Lionel Thornton, the bus driver, if he could improve his performance. It was the type of bus on which the steering wheel could be lifted free by simply removing a nut. Lionel Thornton did just that. Handing the steering wheel to the farmer, he said: “If you can do any better, have a go!”

At a time when Pennine buses laboured up Buckhaw Brow on their way from Settle to Ingleton, it was such a popular run on a sunny Sunday that a Mr Robinson erected a stall by the head of the Brow and sold fruit, vegetables and rabbits.

In course of time, Pennine took over Britain’s oldest bus company founded by Ezra Laycock. I met – and admired – Arthur Simpson, one of the founders of Pennine. He died in June, 1974. He had a varied life. Apart from being a busman, he was a skilled engineer, horologist and collector of fine paintings.

When I think of Pennine, innumerable tales come to mind. There was a day when, as I was travelling from Clapham to Skipton, a goat was among the passengers.

I heard the story – which may or may not be true – of an old lady who boarded the bus creakily, bought a ticket for Skipton and asked the man at the wheel to drive carefully. She was going to the hospital. As she left the bus in town, the driver asked her how she felt. “I’m alright,” was the reply. “I’ve got a jelly in this bag – and it hadn’t quite set when I left home.”