Our Bus
For several months while we were setting up the Book Bus Foundation, it felt as if one of the most important pieces of the puzzle was missing. All that changed one day early in December 2006, when Tom Maschler called us together and announced, "I’ve just bought a bus".
The Book Bus is a Leyland Tiger, built in Britain in 1980. For many years it did sterling duty as a public service vehicle. It is a good strong workhorse, perfect for our needs.
Tom was guided through the process of buying and refitting the bus by the EnsignBus company. They pulled out all the stops to get the bus ready in time to be shipped to Zambia in early March, 2007.
Getting the bus ready for Zambia
Of course our Leyland Tiger needed a complete refit, not only to take out the seats and replace them with bookshelves, but also to make it "Africa-proof". This involved new electrical circuits, a heavy duty pump and generator, rough terrain tyres and a tropical engine cooling system.
The most spectacular part of the refit was Quentin Blake’s decoration of the bus. Quentin is one of Britain’s best-loved children’s artists and he and Tom have worked together for many years.
When Tom asked his old friend if he might be willing to decorate the bus, Quentin’s response was immediate: "Of course I will." He set to work and quickly came up with a design that would cover the entire front, back and sides of the bus in beautiful colour illustrations.
The design that Quentin devised is perfect for the Book Bus.Done in his unique style, it shows children reading and playing with books and animals. Colour, energy and joy pour out of the illustrations.
Putting Quentin Blake’s designs onto the bus
The job posed some interesting challenges. Although Quentin’s illustrations were on a much smaller scale than the bus, it was still difficult to find a scanner large enough to handle them. In the end we took photographs of the artwork and converted them to digital files. These in turn were output as vinyl transfers, which were applied to the bus. We all held our breath while this process was underway – there was no time for anything to go wrong!
You can see the results for yourself. The Book Bus truly is magnificent – a work of art.
click to enlarge
We are immensely proud of our spectacular Leyland Tiger. And now we are more excited than ever at the prospect of driving the bus around Zambia, introducing it and its cargo of books to children who will never have seen such a spectacle before.