More Than Just A Bus

A stretch of sea, a journey that must be made and a little bus that has become an Island institution. For twenty-five years, the Daisy Ring Bus has been narrowing the Solent for Isle of Wight cancer patients travelling to mainland hospitals. But its story is anything but an ordinary tale of getting from A to B. Behind the wheels are decades of campaigning, unlikely friendships, laughter, fierce loyalties and an Island community that refuses to leave its own stranded.

From June Ring’s pioneering work in cancer support and the earliest volunteer drivers to the creation of the Daisy Bus and its dramatic rescue from closure in 2025 as the Daisy Ring Bus, this is a history of remarkable characters, unexpected challenges and hard-won victories. Drawing on photographs, newspaper archives, personal recollections and moving testimonies, Jean G-Owen celebrates the people who built the service, the battles fought to protect it and the passengers whose journeys reveal its true significance. At once a celebration of community endeavour and a revealing account of the difficulties facing Island cancer patients, More Than Just A Bus is written proof that the shortest distance between two places is a community pulling together.