The 1934 edition of W. Alexander's guide to its tour and bus services, based on Glasgow and parts of Central Scotland, contains many adverts for associated companies and services. It includes this advert for the Belfast based bus and coach operator, H.M.S. Catherwood, the year before this short lived but successful company was to vanish.
Catherwood's were formed in 1925 and grew from a singel bus route and a coach operation, to become a successful operator both north and south of the relatively new Border between Northern and Southern Ireland. By 1927 this included a long distance service between Belfast and Dublin, much to the chagrin of the Great Northern Railway. In 1928 they became a private limited company and were engaged in bus 'wars' in Belfast with the Corporation (who saw them off) and in Derry/Londonderry where they were more successful; the council awarded them an effective franchise to run the city's bus services. In 1932 the Tilling Group became the majority shareholder in the concern that was by now a staunch purchaser of Leyland vehicles.
However in 1933 the company lost all its services south of the Border to the GNR(I) and the GSR and, in 1935, this was followed by the effective nationalisation of all road services in Ulster by the Northern Ireland Road Transport Board and so, after only a decade, Catherwood's vanished.