We welcome you to this rather special DVD programme featuring the buses and coaches from Go-Ahead’s GoSouthCoast company with its head office based in Poole, Dorset.  It is a tribute to Andrew Wickham MBE, the company’s Managing Director who died in June 2025.  Andrew was a great supporter of our DVD programmes both as an industry professional and as a life long bus enthusiast.  We had the honour of being invited to his funeral and wake as his request involved the presence of buses, both preserved and current!  Our programme concludes with some highlights of this extraordinary send off.  You will see that the current buses in attendance were lined up in order of the companies and local brands joining what became GoSouthCoast. (morebus, Salisbury Reds, Damory, Southern Vectis, Bluestar, Swindon’s Bus Company and Excelsior). 
 
This programme was filmed at various times during 2024 and 2025 and is presented in the order as stated above.  We begin with morebus and film the buses in service at Poole, Bournemouth and Ringwood during 2024 and 2025.  Plenty of action to enjoy including the entry into service of the new ADL Enviro400MMC double-deckers on the m1 and m2 routes as well as other local services around Poole and Bournemouth.  A total of 48 are now in service with a few more added in 2025.  We also see the former ADL Enviro400MMC buses allocated to the busy X3 route from Bournemouth to Salisbury (1648 – 1654), now devoid of X3 branding awaiting transfer to Southern Vectis on the Isle of Wight.  Their replacements are also seen in action.  Look out for the Volvo B7TL Wright Eclipse Gemini double-deckers originally from London, but late of Go North East in service and soon to disappear.  In December 2024 morebus celebrated 20 years of the very busy high frequency m1 and m2 routes that run between Bournemouth and Poole with a birthday party in Poole bus station!  Salisbury Reds is our next feature with footage shot in Salisbury.  You can see a full account of Salisbury Reds buses in our recent DVD release “Salisbury Reds 2020 – 2024”. 
   
We now feature a short sequence of Damory buses filmed in Blandford.  Firstly at the depot we see some Scania N94 East Lancs OmniDekka buses recently transferred from the Swindon’s Bus Company.  We also see some Excelsior coaches parked up at the depot and some action in the town centre.  Our next location is the Isle of Wight, home to the Southern Vectis fleet.  Our filming takes place at Ryde, Yarmouth and Newport.  At Newport we film at the busy bus station and adjacent streets and see a good selection of buses in action.  Southern Vectis also had seven new ADL Enviro400MMC double-deckers in 2023.  These are seen in service with their ‘HW’ registration marks indicating that they were first registered on the Isle of Wight, just as all other new GoSouthCoast buses have ‘local’ Dorset marks.  Southampton is home to the Bluestar fleet and we see them in action by Southampton’s railway station.  You can see more of the Bluestar fleet in an upcoming DVD programme featuring the fleet that we filmed during 2024 and 2025.  The Swindon’s Bus Company fleet was the last company to join the GoSouthCoast family in 2017 and we see them in action on a brief visit to Marlborough. 
   
Our programme concludes with our attendance at the funeral of Andrew Wickham MBE.  Our cameras travel on board Salisbury Reds 1809 (HJ25 BYR), an ADL Enviro400MMC with a police escort to the church at Sturminster Marshall and ride to the wake on board 409 (409 DCD), a 1964 Leyland Titan PD3/4 with a Northern Counties convertible open-top body for refreshments at Upton Country Park.