(07 Jun 2016, 9:08 am)Charles41 wrote Doves Coaches are indeed the same family as David Dove. They are based in the same yard.

Just to confuse things even more, minibus operator Frederick Dove is the uncle of David Dove jnr. Frederick Dove is also based in the Herrington yard and uses David Dove Travel fleetnames. If you look closely you can tell the Frederick Dove vehicles as they run on an orange restricted o-licence disk.

The Dove family used to be in partnership with the Reekie family who own Whitestar which are based nearby at GNE's old Philadephia garage.

The Reekie family meanwhile are descendants of the late Don Smith who used to be a large independent operator in the 1980s in County Durham. He used to have lot of colliery contracts at Murton and Easington along with National Express work. Don Smith Travel still trades but the family only have a single coach running on that o-licence now.

I'm sure there's also connection here to the owners of former coach operator Dubmire but I've yet to fathom it out!

Charles

Thanks Charles, it's amazing when you look into these things.
A similar family arrangement exists between TM Travel and North East Coachways, who also seem to be in partnership with Pygalls Coaches now, and some link exists between Pygalls, Roberts and Ted Wilford as they regular sell stuff to each other