Vintage Notes

A good turnout was boosted slightly for the June meeting by Brian King who thought he was coming to a Motorcycle meeting. He elected to stay and we thoroughly enjoyed his company and I think he enjoyed ours, as after the meeting he was heard to remark that he might get his dates mixed up again sometime. The meeting started out in the carpark with everyone admiring Arthur Atkin’s immaculate ’29 De Soto. Chris Wood has done minor repairs to his 1924 Austin 20 radiator that George Mihaljevich built around 50 years ago. Richard Green is making progress on the head of his 1930 20/25 Rolls Royce that he spoke about last time. He then initiated some light hearted discussion around the way old cars are appreciated according to their originality and the views around the table were varied and entertaining. I noticed John Stokes quietly disappearing, and he shortly reappeared with a very old book from the Library, from which he read an excerpt in quaint English, proving that this discussion has been going on for a long time. The Dewhurst/Winterbottom families attended the Irishman Creek Rally with three generations sharing the driving in two cars. Norm and Pat’s Essex “failed to proceed” quite early on, so a “modern” was pressed into service. This finished okay, but in rather battered condition and I think Norm was a little relieved that the Essex had not been subjected to some rather rough terrain. It had a nice ride home on a transporter. The Winterbottom Talbot is now well and truly run in and performing very well. Parts of the rally were quite hair-raising and Pat says that while she wouldn’t have missed it, she is glad she won’t have to do it again.

Murray & Penny Firth

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