With an interest in road & rail transport, the DinnageS family team have become known locally in Brighton & Sussex as enthusiasts and historians in varying modes of transport through the ages. Gordon has been interested primarily in road transport & the local bus operators vehicles since the late 1960's. Intriged in the electrical powered trams & trolleybuses of the UK, particularly in Magnus Volk's creations. Through the early 1980's became a collector of memorbilia relating to transport of the south coast towns.
Carolyn, Steven & John Dinnage have all been greatly involved since the hobby became more of a small business. Established in 1989, the turnover grew rapidly in each succesive year, originally trading from home. Soon outgrowing the home storage space, fitted out a small local retail unit in central Brighton by the end of 1990. With an expansion of collectables sold, grew an interest in the real thing! True bus, tram, trolleybus & rail enthusiasts led the way into an interest in photography, of both nostalgic & current vehicles, in working service also at the vehicle rallies & steam days that we then were attending.
Since 1993 under the title 'The DTP LIBRARY', began seriously collecting and providing archive & modern views of transport including local Brighton/Sussex views. The 'DTP Library' since then has provided this archive library of both nostalgic & modern images to many enthusiasts, historians, museum studies & industry since establishing this archive.
The recepients of these photographic 'postcard' size prints, have included Brighton & Hove Bus & Coach Co. Brighton Museum, Book authors, Ian Allen Publishing & many individuals for reference & display. Barrie Hutson has framed many of the same as single & multi-view images from the 'DTP Library' & his own material as personal & gift purchases. The quality & most interesting views initially sold as photographs will in time become published as postcards or charity Christmas Cards. During all these years, many sources of nostalgic emphemeria have been gathered, with a view to expanding the availability of the photographs re-printed from the ever increasing library of as yet untouched B&W, Colour negatives, & slides.
By 1998, the first professionally produced modern postcard was released, of a Brighton Tram & Trolleybus in the Old Steine in 1939 by a good friend Jack Turley, although wrongly credited in a tram book to another. These postcards alongside the photographs, have been created to bring previously unavailable & some unseen views to the general historian, transport enthusiast, & postcard collector. Proceeds created from the retail sale of these & new releases, help towards vehicle preservation. Christmas 1999 brought the first real snow scene greeting card, to satisfy those searching for topical seasonal cards for partners, friends & family. Plans are building on new cards supporting charities.
The pressures of an another already full-time business to run, retail premises overheads, staffing, time & commitment, and with a growing family, led to the closure of the retail side in early February 2000, after a good ten years of retailing, building on sources of material & contacts. Turning to new media, creation of this site to widen the awareness of the 'DTP Library' began from our first page online in October 2000. Continuing to supply our regular contacts through various events in the South, for photographs. postcards, scale models, transport videos, publications from The Southdown Enthuiasts Club, P A Harding & other emphemeria, we support a number of local transport related clubs, societies & associations mainly based in Sussex through our sister web site Sussex-Transport (Groups).A visit to this site later from our site map may be of interest, with a good number of pages to look round & listings to look at or download on this site.
During 2002, Malcolm Dinnage with his cabinet making skills, has brought back the availability of his collectors display cabinets. Two sizes are available, & further details can be obtained by contacting us, with pictures & more information to be added on this site for the cabinets & other new topics, so a revisit will always be worth a look.
Whatever your interest, in local scenes, road or rail transport, for collecting, displaying, as reference or for a gift, please write or email us with an outline of your requirments, & we will endeavour to provide some interesting material.
Please look around our site to guide you on what we have available, either photograhic, road or rail booklets, old timetables, or some model buses. Always interested in new original pre-1975 photographs, negatives, slides, & timetables.
Please write to;
All sales through events, postal or by appointment.
Please enclose an SAE for your reply, or contact by email here
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©DTP 2003 These pages & all content, images/text/sound, on any website administered by us, is protected by copyright, using anything from these pages will be an infringement.
DTP library views are available for purchase, all others are used with credit & permission where possible.