Showing posts with label Car. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Car. Show all posts

Wednesday 21 February 2024

Car


I have been fantasying of buying a car.  Considering I have no money this will remain a fantasy for some time.  However, I could do with one, not just to 'get about' the locale, but to travel far distance and see people I have not seen in years.  Or 'family' as they are called.  
There are problems other than being skint of course, since obtaining the licence I have not driven.  Being unemployed at the time, getting aid to do the lessons, I ha
ve not had the cash to buy a car.  Now I have moved from the pauper stage up into the poverty stage I can begin to dream of greater things.  
Now I know a recent death has left me some cash, though exact amount is unclear, but even with the money how do I buy a car?  And, as I age can my mind cope with all that is involved now?  I forget so many things, this memory lapse could be dangerous on a road, so I hesitate here.  
Maybe I could convince a bright young blonde to chauffer me?
What?  Oh...


Much political shenanigans in the House today.  I did not observe this, I could not contain myself if I did, but a proposal to bring peace to Gaza has caused war in politics.  Naturally, this was meant.  By bringing this proposal the SNP wanted to embarrass Labour, many of whom get backhanders from Israeli lobbyists, and force a rebellion from the Labour backbenchers.  Labour, allegedly, demanded the Speaker allowed an amendment, from them, or they would chuck him out after the next election.  The Speaker, not the best ever known in the House, gave in.  Now a vote on a Tory amendment is also looming.  
I canny mind a parliament so absurd and awful as what we have today.  I can recall MacMillan and many since then, I recall many problems in the House, but this lot are a new low.  The Tory cabinet and junior ministers lie in their teeth to keep their job.  They know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, yet they lie.  Well, one or two may not know if they are lying to tell the truth, one or two are less intelligent than a dead parrot yet have a ministers job!  
The opposition cannot tell us what a woman is, in case they lose the deviant vote, even the more sensible members are on the take and unclear as to their own policies, these change daily at the moment, and do not impress with policies to put the nation back together again.  They merely want to be in power!
At least an election will bring a change, but what?

Monday 4 September 2023

Car Show: at Braintree & Bocking Gardens 2023


I played truant from the Kirk on Sunday.  The service was going to be a long one and I conversed with myself as to missing it, I agreed with myself, and then went over to the gardens for the car show.
The 'Pickup Truck' seen here is one of those things many worldwide long for.  In the UK and much of Europe it means little, but the wide open spaces in such lands as the USA, New Zealand and Australia, saw a need among farmers and others for such vehicles.  
The Ford Model 'T' was adapted as far back as 1917 into a 'pickup' and developed somewhat during the 1920s.  However, as far as I can make out it was in 1940 when General Motors introduced the 'AK Series' that what we know as a 'Pickup truck' first appeared.  Ford soon followed and a generation of young Americans saw the vehicle as their main aim.  In the UK we still longed to afford a bike!
This one on show looked somewhat tarnished, but I bet the price to buy would be great.


The Ford Anglia.  This car sits in my mind as representing the period when the UK found the modern world.  No longer would cars all be black, nor would they be curved all round, instead the modern US styled fashion was here.  A bright ne world existed and was to be cherished.  Mind you, I was only 10 years old!  

The 'Zodiac,' another example of the modern desire to copy the flash US cars of the late 1950s.  Old people may remember these cars as fronting the revolutionary TV police programme called 'Z Cars.' Here, the modern police ran around in white Zodiacs catching criminals in a new manner and putting the world to rights.  The series lasted for many years.


Personally I would prefer one of these.  Ideal for us young bucks while running around during the summertime, especially down by the seaside.  Of course I may be confusing US adverts and movies with a day under the Haar at Cramond beach, but you know what I mean.


I did not hang around long enough to discover who got prizes for the machines, but when I saw this 'Alvis' I gave it top prize.  Of course I had not seen half the cars there at the time but this car looked what a car ought to be.  Running boards over the wheel, huge headlights, bright radiator, and a wonderful wee mannie on the front.


The wee mannie...


While as a 10 year old I looked into the future of vehicle travel, now I look at this curved beauty and realise my mistake.  US imitations are well enough but this 'Morris' had a quality that the flat air resistant cars of today lack.  It may weigh a ton, be slow, and in todays world unsafe, but it looks like  bit of class in comparison to cars today.


It is always difficult to beat a Jaguar, and this is a beauty!   I think this is the 'D' Type, but I found nothing to confirm this as I pushed and shoved the fantasists of all ages dreaming of being John Surtees or Stirling Moss.  


A roll bar added to the 1965 great, but nothing else.  I would be scared to drive fast in this in case it rolled and scratched the paint.  The car is too good to drive fast!


This may be more my 'cup of tea.'  Slow, in danger of tumbling over at all times, and in danger of attack by 'Mr Bean!'  


As always there are the bikes, with many a biker gathered together talking about bikes and boring everyone in the family around them.  Fabulous set of bikes of past ages.  I bet many of these men have a 'Honda' at home...


Situated in front of the war memorial is a vehicle from the 1950s.  The 'Ferret Mk 2,'   Built by 'Daimler' in 1948 and brought into service between 1952 -1971 the 5000 'Ferrets' were a scout car that saw service with the British Army and many other friendly nations.  This one lives in the locale.


A different type of 'Daimler.'


A different type!


Entertainment of suitable vintage was available, and these two were very good indeed.


This is only a sample of the days 165 pictures. 
 I will put the rest on the Photo Page.

Sunday 5 March 2023

Men With a Hobby

 

Edinburgh Bus.  (Canny find @ sorry)

I was looking at a photograph of a cut down bus being used as a repair vehicle for the Bournemouth Trolley Bus service.  Now, before you start I realise you are yawning with your mouth closed but anyway, this intrigued me.  This was not the picture in itself, a routine snap of daily life in the early 1950s, but the follow up comments on Facebook.  Such pictures bring a flurry of men 'who know!'  Indeed, many did know, they knew it was not a 'bus,' as the poster had called it but a repair wagon, a cut down ex-bus.  Soon we knew it was a Huddersfield bus cut down in 1945 and used by Bournemouth buses.  We also knew the date of the picture, the repair man was not repairing but removing trolley bus overhead wires, that bus route had ceased and normal buses were being introduced, and I was somewhat surprised the life history of the man (wearing a tie and jacket) working there was not offered.  
The point of this the need for men to have a hobby!
Men require something to do, something they understand, appreciate, and can show off with.  Buses, their origin, age, design, engine power, and a host of other needless fancies, can fill some men's mind for days.  Show a 1958 'Green Line' bus to some me and they will wax lyrical about the bus, the routes, the tall tales about driver, conductor and passengers, some of which will actually be true.  Their wives will however, roll the eyes, mutter something under the breath and change the conversation to a more practical boring subject, one which we shall ignore here.
One place I worked fishing was the thing.  This I find boring and somewhat needless but when one of the boys laid down a copy of 'Trout Monthly; or whatever it was a long boring, but quite excited, exchange of view of trout, their habits, where they could be caught, how different men went about the deed, and on and on and on and on they went.  But they were happy.  My parents had a friend, Bob, who would go off into the Highlands with his fishing gear, just to get away from her indoors, and one his own or with a friend I know not, but would return with fish for the tea.  Interestingly, this couple had an old black 'Range' on which to cook, well into the 1960s.  Quite how they managed that, and they in Morningside at that!

Alfred_Stieglitz The Hand_of_Man_

Railways of course add another level of joy to a man.  There is no limit, and no possibility of reaching the limit of knowledge about railways, both in the UK and abroad.  The subject is limitless, and some can go on about it for ever.  I once mentioned in the museum a particular railways engine, sadly I gave it the wrong name!  I was jumped on from every side, where in two minutes I had received a history of the said loco, the proper colour and name, where it is preserved, and how to see it, if I was wishing to do so.  There are almost 20 sites on facebook dealing with railways of some sort, no doubt fishing and buses also, and I keep in touch with one.  Railway enthusiasts, never 'anoraks,' can find details on almost every engine ever made somewhere on line.  There is a man, always a man, who sits and lists all engines, coaches, trucks, stations, sheds, workmen's sheds, nameplates, badges, pay details, drivers names, old lines, new lines, new lines overseas, old lines overseas, uniforms, signalling, flags, hots, oil lamps, shoes, and on and on and on and on.....They also write books, of which I had read some...
Cars also drive many a man mad, and indeed one of my highly intelligent and beautiful great nieces is indeed mad on cars.  Naturally, being a woman she is fussy about which car she wants, the colour, the wheels, the seats, the engine (which she understands better than most men, and she finds I never mention cars to her.  I get bored.


Motorcycles also have men running around, especially when the wife finds him mending the oil caked ex-army 'Matchless' 250cc on the kitchen table.  Some men take great delight in restoring such beasts.
Several thousand pounds, that could have been spent on her, hours and hours of work can lead to great satisfaction and possibly a divorce.  However, keep in mind you can always get another woman.  
The hours spent on bikes or cars, alongside travelling on aged buses, and long distant rail journeys pulled by steam engine cannot be beat by any of the rubbish filling the tv today.  Men need a hobby, photography, cars, fishing, birdwatching, you name it, men will be filling the day doing such important activities.  
Note, I say men.  Certainly women do similar things, have great knowledge and understanding, but it is mainly men who do such as this.  You see them huddle in groups around an engine, all knowing the best thing to do, standing freezing at the end of railway platforms, gazing into the skies around airports listening into radio traffic between aircraft and control.  Men need this.  It would be easy to claim this was because they had lost faith in the living God, but many such men do have such faith.   Certainly their faith enables them to avoid living for the hobby as some do, for many it is all they have to fill their lives, and the faith in the creator God who enabled man to devise such machines as steam engines, cars or aeroplanes gives much pleasure.  A great bug engine which came out of the ground a s a bit of metal, now transformed into this beast is worth considering.  And without the Lords input would they have been created?
We all have this need to do something, to be creative, to use the hands, to write, build, see, follow, and keep ourselves occupied.  Those who do not have such hobbies end up in pubs, trouble or death.  The hobbyist repairing a machine that has not worked for 40 years has more satisfaction than many of us sluggards can ever appreciate.

Tuesday 7 September 2021

Motor Show III

 You can come out now, this is the last from the Motor Show!



Now some people think this weird.
Not I.
This reminds me of some of my relatives! 
The man told me he had not polished it recently.













 
An Eddie Cochrane sang songs all the while.

 
I believe Clem Attlee used to go on holiday.
Driving around the south west with his wife, alone, in one of these. 
This was after the war, when Prime Minister, and without escort.