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-me White T0 have reached the age of 74 and still be in harness as general manager of a public transport undertaking
is no mean achievement. But Henry Orme White, managing director, general manager and chief engineer of the Gosport and Fareham Omnibus Co., carries his years lightly and certainly he has no present intention of exchanging his buses for a bath chair.
Here is a man who has enjoyed every moment of his 50 years with the Provincial Traction Co., Ltd., the parent company of Gosport and Fareham. Moreover, he can think of no career which he would have preferred to follow. He has grown up" with passenger transport and in half a century of attempting to meet the wildly differing needs of the travelling public, he finds today's problems as stimulating as they were when electric traction, steam and the new-fangled petrol engine created one anxiety after another.
Mr. White is by training an electrical engineer with more than a passing affection for steam. , At a tender age he must have wanted to be an engine-driver, if only because his father was general manager of the Paraguay Railway. But such an ambition was thwarted by the need for education and he was sent home to England, where he went to St. Paul's. However, his technical training included a spell with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.. and in due time he was appointed generating-station engineer to Cleethorpes Tramways, then a Provincial Traction undertaking.
During the 1914-18 war years young Mr. Orme White found plenty of scope for his inventive talents and for his
flair for improvization. There were, some remarkable steamers and gas-driven buses and tramcars with an unlikely amount of overhang at each end of the begies. All of them functionedto some extent and some had qualities which have never been repeated: others suffered the. fate they deserved as soon as transport resumed some sort of nortnality. But they went far towards making Cleethorpcs one of the most popular of seaside resorts.
. After 14 years with the company Mr. Orme White was appointed general manager at Cleethorpes in 1924 and he held this position until the Grimsby'and.Cleethorpes tram. ways undertakings were finally merged in 1936. He was then transferred to Gosport and Fareharn, with the joint responsibilities of general manager and engineer. In 1958 he was appointed managing director, retaining charge of the engineering department.
About 70 Vehicles The area served by the company is by no means large and the buses and coaches operated number about 70. But they manage to make a modest profit and, for. this happy state of affairs, the policies and personality of the managing director are largely responsible. Mr. Orme White has definite views on how such a company should conduct business and he acknowledges with gratitude the assistance he is assured by Mr. David Webb, his chairman.
He regards good vehicles as the basis of success. In his district, near the sea, teak framing has proved to be almost essential. Most of his vehicles have been re-bodied more than once and some are more than 20 years old. They continue to function perfectly and they contribute towards the credit balance. The pence-per-mile cost figure of Gosport and Fareham is among the lowest in the country.
Mr. Orme White is a man of fertile brain and great ,energy; He travels a good deal, keeps his eyes open and is always ready to adapt an idea to his company's needs. He is pioneering the use of air-cooled oil engines for doubledeckers, and is well pleased with their economy and lack of vibration. He would have introduced the Oerlikon gyro-bus with a little more co-operation from the electricity undertaking. He uses roofless double-deckers on fine days and he has an idea that double-deckers could be modified for one-man operation and used in off-peaks with the upper deck closed off.
Tobacco Grower Nor are his original thoughts confined to public transport.
For example, he grows, cures and matures his own tobacco. After two years the leaf makes an excellent cigar-like cigarette of slightly daunting appearance. Conscious .that engineering science should be the handmaid of man, he has devised a simple mechanical device to open his garage gates, and shut them behind him: a fine thing in any weather. Furthermore, opposed to the idea of pedalling away at his pianola, he drives it remotely by means of his electric vacuum sweeper. There seem to be few jobs around the house or workshop that he will not tackle with enthusiasm.
In recent years he has added to his other interests the
care of Chinese geese and Muscovy ducks. These are fascinating birds with beautiful markings. The geese not only answer to their names, but act as watch-dogs, just as they did for the Romans of the Capitol. Perhaps I should
add that the establishment also houses fish, caged birds and a dog.
Henry Orme White is a man with a tremendous zest for living; with the type of mind which is not content merely to toy with ideas. He enjoys nothing better than to translate a thought into reality and he infuses enthusiasm into all he does, and, I fancy, into all those people who work with him. T.W.