A 1954 Regent double decker bus swings past Bootham Tower on its way to Exhibition Square, in our first photograph today.

The bus, like most others in York at the time, was operated by York Pullman, which actually had its offices in the very tower the bus is passing. Look carefully to the left of the photograph, and you can just see a couple of A boards advertising Pullman excursions.

The photograph comes from a new book, York Pullman - 1926 to 1985, by Stuart Emmett. It is a slim little volume of just 50 pages, but it is packed with photographs of early Pullman buses in York and on some of the rural routes that Pullman operated, and it includes a concise but clear history of the bus company.

York Pullman was founded in 1926 as a partnership between Norman Pearce and Hartas Foxton. From 1938, the company operated from a new depot on Navigation Road behind Walmgate: the depot could hold 40 vehicles, as well as having workshop areas for maintenance, greasing and painting.

The company's administrative offices were originally in Piccadilly, but in 1951 they moved to Bootham Tower.

By the 1970s, the company operated not only buses, but also a growing number of excursions and tours, and was carrying an estimated one million passengers a year.

In 1985, the company was sold to Reynard Coaches; and in February 1990, the coaching side of the business was sold again, to Hull City Transport, along with the Pullman name. The bus side of the business was sold to the Rider Group (which later became part of First) in the same year.

So much for the history. It is the wonderful photographs in the book which will appeal to many readers - not only because of the buses themselves, which are hugely evocative of a calmer, less frenetic past, but for the glimpses the photographs afford of York in the 1950s and 60s: of Exhibition Square as a bus terminus; of Reynard's Garage on Piccadilly (now replaced by Spark:York) when it was a main terminus; and of buses hurrying along Walmgate or down Bootham.

Just don't expect to see any photos of a York bus station...

Stephen Lewis

York Pullman - 1926 to 1985 by Stuart Emmett is published by Stenlake, priced £10.95