Names on the buses

 635 Angela Thirkell

Connections with Brighton and Hove : Many writers lived in Rottingdean and the most notable of them all was Rudyard Kipling. Their exploits were tenderly recounted by one of their number, Angela Thirkell, in a book called Three Houses. First published in 1931, it was about her love for The Grange in Fulham, North End House in Rottingdean and The Elms in the same village. The first two houses belonged to her grandfather, the painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and the third to Kipling. In the book, she gave a charming account of a child looking at the Pre-Raphaelite circle and of the writer she called Cousin Ruddy. Thirkell was probably best known nationally for her Barsetshire novels in which she wittily chronicled English country life in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. They were based on the novels by Trollope, using his geography and descendants of some of his characters. Her other work included a biography of the Regency courtesan Harriette Wilson, children’s stories called The Grateful Sparrow and Trooper to the Southern Cross, a book about a voyage to Australia.

635 Scania Omnidekka carried name since delivery in February 2004, on METRO Line 1. Metro 1 branding removed April 2012. Bus sold in November 2020. Bus reappeared on ADL Enviro400 719 in March 2024.