independent transport videos welcome you to this very special two-part DVD programme featuring some of the preserved buses and coaches from the Isle of Wight Bus & Coach Museum.  The first part is ‘Ryde Over The Downs’.  This features a special outing of the Museum’s superbly restored little Dennis Ace coach, 405 (DL 9015), dating from 1934.  It has a Harrington twenty-seat coach body and was fitted with a six-cylinder Bedford petrol engine after 1945.  It had a busy life after being withdrawn from Southern Vectis in 1959.  It was first preserved in the late 1960s but didn’t appear at the Museum until 1997 when it was displayed unrestored, until 2001 when it was bought by Derek Priddle who carried out a full restoration of the coach and it returned to the Museum in March 2015.  The occasion of the outing was to celebrate the 80^th birthday of Norman Aish, the proprietor of ‘Bygone Bedford Bits’, a long established small company that provides parts for Bedford engines. 
   
We begin our tour of ‘The Downs’ from the Esplanade at Ryde.  For your enjoyment and for the pleasure of the invited guests we have put a camera at the front of the Dennis that capturers the driver’s eye view of the road and another in the saloon to capture the sights and sounds that the passenger’s experience.  The Downs tour travels through Havenstreet, home of the Isle of Wight Steam Railway and along the main road over the Downs giving us spectacular views of the countryside and the sea in the distance.  Our journey ends  at the Bus & Coach Museum, which is on the occasion of the ‘Wightrider’ event covering the 12-13 October 2024 weekend.  A thoroughly enjoyable time was had by all.  The second part of our DVD programme shows some of the highlights of the ‘Rydabus’ event that took place over the weekend of 18-19 May 2024.  Filming begins at the Museum where we see the busy scene of the arrivals and departures as the day gets underway.  A little later we see former Southern Vectis  OT4 (MDL 954), the open-top Bristol Lodekka at Seaview as it is taken there for a photo-shoot. 
   
With more filming completed at the Museum our cameras take a ride on former Southern Vectis 908 (FLJ 538), a 1940 Bristol K5G with a 1954 ECW convertible open-top body, also to Seaview.  This interesting bus started life with Hants & Dorset with a 53-seat ECW body allocated to Bournemouth in 1940.  It was re-bodied with its present convertible body in 1954, but lost it’s roof in a bridge-strike in 1960.  It was sold to Southern Vectis in 1964 and operated by them until 1974.  It then went overseas to Belgium and after operating with three companies there it arrived back on the Island and went to the Isle of Wight Bus Museum in 2009 where it was fully restored to the excellent condition you see it here today.  We hope that you enjoy your rides with us on this DVD programme.