PEOPLE
Cars of a certain age JOHN GORDON
The problem of fi nding suitable candidates who fi t the criteria to qualify for the ‘Cars of a certain age’ spot in ‘Newport News’, i.e. being made in or before 1974, the year the magazine started becomes more and more diffi cult as the years roll by. You can imagine my joy therefore when I spotted a 1963 Land Rover series 2a in Bridge End. Further enquiries revealed that Simon and Kate Ollerenshaw of The Crown House owned it. Accordingly I knocked on the door one June morning and introduced myself. I explained my quest to them and asked if they would like to write a brief piece about themselves and the Land Rover, which they later did and below is the result. That we came to live in Newport is partly down to the encouragement of the editor of this fine magazine. We had lived abroad for six years. Having emigrated with a few bags and no children, we moved back to the UK in 2007 with three small nippers and a container load of accumulated baby gear. We had always had it vaguely in mind that we would end up in this part of the world (Kate’s mother’s family are from Essex), but no idea of exactly where. We rented a house north of here, in Balsham, and enrolled the children in a school in Saffron Walden, thinking it would be easy to find a house to buy nearby and at least then they wouldn’t have to move schools yet again. Nearly two years later we were still looking, when Kate heard about the Crown House. It clearly needed some care and maintenance, and it was - through a friend of ours who knew the Gordons well - John who gave us a lot of
confidence that it was worth taking it on. Right he was - it has been a wonderful house to live in, full of stories, memories of Christopher Fell, places to hide in, and very few flat floors. We should mention our gratitude to Steve Minchin for all of the help he has given us since moving here. His knowledge – from the intricacies of the heating system to what Christopher used to do about moles in the garden - has been invaluable. The spiders sometimes seem to be taking over, the dog tests the patience of our neighbours, and the garden has faded a bit since Christopher’s days (although Ben Hornby is doing great works now and we may be confident enough about the state of the border to participate in the Newport Open Gardens next time round!). But we wouldn’t live anywhere else, and look forward to many more years in Newport. John also asked us for an explanation of the archaic Land Rover which we have. We have no great tales, other than the winter of three years ago when our Swedish (supposedly all-weather) car couldn’t even get out of Bridge End without spades and sand and salt. Just in case the new ice age were to set in even further, a battered Landie seemed a sensible back-up. The windscreen wipers work when they want to, the heating alternates between “none” and “brutal”, and the windows fall out when you shut the doors. But it has nothing electronic to go wrong, always starts, and for that we are grateful to the skill and patience of Paul and the team at Premier Garage. Simon Ollerenshaw
Having read this further questions popped into my mind and I later called on them to take some photographs and jot down some basic facts. Luckily the whole family was assembled. I began with Simon, who is with Barclays Bank in London. He told me that he was born in 1969 in Surrey and after leaving school read Anglo Saxon and Old Norse at Durham University. Kate then explained that she had been born in 1971 in Taiwan and had also been to Durham where she read Classics and where she met Simon. She then qualifi ed as a Solicitor and works part-time as a regulatory lawyer. She also copy-edits legal text books, is a school governor and helps out with the junior choir at St Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden. Simon and Kate married in 1998 and after a stint in London served three years each in Hong Kong and the US. They returned in 2007 and rented a property in Balsham whilst they looked round for something suitable and were delighted when they found The Crown House, a grade 2 starred property. Meanwhile their three children (Sophie, Tilly and James) were putting in an appearance. Sophie goes to school in Cambridge whilst Tilly and James are at Dame Bradbury’s in Saffron Walden. The whole family very much enjoy living in Newport and love their home where they have every intention of putting down roots. NN CLASSICS! If you have a classic car, motorbike, van, lorry or bus (or any other kind of vehicle!), and would like to be featured in Newport News, please get in touch with John Gordon (542090).
Winter 2013 Newport News 95