I can remember going around with a grimy shirt collar at school in the 50`s and thinking it was my fault.
But really it was all those smoky chimneys here up North - and on the LMS line - those great Austerity class steam trains stonking by at walking pace - pulling 150 coal trucks.
Auntie Nellie had a Ford Anglia then and considered it `advanced` - uncle John used to drive it past with the engine making that `we saved money making it` small car, bag of nails jingle. Maybe it was the tappets.
The 4pm `Streak` used to come over on the LNER and you cursed it if it was Silver Fox AGAIN. Or even worse Wild Swan.
Meanwhile - not far away - Auntie Ethel had the A60 with 6" of play in the steering and Uncle Bill twitched in his chair dreaming he was still a Commando.
You got taken to Bridlington in the A60 - whereupon the temperature always dropped 10c and your legs went red due to wearing short pants.
Giant `mushrooms` were once found growing under the little pre-fab holiday home - and the adults ate them with confidence - while I, aged 10yrs stood back and held my breath.
So what incidents can you remember from childhood?
Edited by oilrag on 24/01/2010 at 18:08
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Been driven in an executive saloon of the day (A Wolsley 16/60) with red creaky leather seats, sitting on my mother's lap at a point on the A470 outside Blaenau Ffestiniog my dad changing gear to climb up the Crimea Pass (named so as it was completed in the year of that battle apparently) - my mum's red coat with red buttons and gold crosses on them - she told me they were kisses...........
Still used to change down near this very spot 45 years later - until the recent road improvement and speed limit changed things.
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I remember (in the late 1940s) going over a footbridge over railway lines when the level crossing was closed for a train to pass, and deliberately standing over the middle of the lines so that I would be enveloped in steam and smoke when the train went under the footbridge. My parents were never affluent enough to own a car.
Edited by L'escargot on 25/01/2010 at 06:30
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Same here - used to get covered in soot. I think the branch line in question was a late developer.
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My parents were never affluent enough to own a car.
I remember once, the old man had to sell the car to pay for the christmas dinner.
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I remember (in the late 1940s) going over a footbridge over railway lines when the level crossing was closed for a train to pass and deliberately standing over the middle of the lines so that I would be enveloped in steam and smoke when the train went under the footbridge.
I still do that with my kids at the local station when a steam special comes through (maybe half a dozen times a year) :-)) Surprised I haven't been arrested for child cruelty yet.
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Trips to North Wales in dads Ford Pop
If it didn't overheat en-route, it was guaranteed to do so in the queue for the Transporter bridge in Runcorn on the way back.
And what for - to spend a week in a double storey garage at Frith beach !
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Sitting unrestrained between my parents on the centre armrest of the front bench seat in my dad's Zephyr Six so I could see out on the long journey from Edinburgh to London in the early '60s. Oh, and chicken sandwiches on brown bread and a strawberry milk shake at a roadside milkbar on the way home.
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Off at a bit of a tangent.
My dad was a motorbiker, starting in the 1950s and all the way up to when he retired in the early 90s. So words like AJS, and Ariel and BSA Bantam and Norton are very nostalgic to me.
When I was a kid we often had a motorbike and sidecar. Show that to today's kids and they'd be rolling around in hysterics at the absurd appearance of it.
Thanks to the wonders of t'internet I've googled names like Busmar and Watsonian, and had a few memories brought back. Randomly from the web, I'm talking about this kind of thing.....
farm4.static.flickr.com/3273/2961276034_2c1dff5541...g
They are now scary looking things. A plywood box on a pram chassis. Wouldn't get anywhere near health and safety these days and for once I'd agree with them. A curious smell of plastic and oil and wood. A canvas roof which folded back on sunny days. Feeling quite cosy as an 8 year old in the back seat going home in the evening.
And we also had a Bond Minicar which was even more bizarre if you look at it now.
Edited by Armstrong Sid on 24/01/2010 at 18:28
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"And we also had a Bond Minicar"
Snap!
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Another Snap, it was proceded by an Arial Square Four and sidecar, scary, but not at the time.:)
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A story from my family. My paternal grandparents had a motorbike and sidecar when they were first married. Quite a rare thing given that this was prior to WW1. They lived in Edinburgh and had to attend a funeral in Aberdeen. My Grandmother lacked a black hat and decided to dye a red one to suit.
The then relatively ambitious journey was undertaken in foul weather, Grandfather driving the combination with Grandmother in the sidecar wearing the hat. It was apparently remarked upon by family members that they had not realised that Grandfather had married a lady of what would then have been considered to be a more exotic lineage...
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 24/01/2010 at 18:38
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Humph
"more exotic lineage"
LOL!
I can relate to a number of experiences on this enjoyable thread, especially steam trains and bench seats. My grandfather had a Zodiac when I was five or six, and used to let me steer! Just as well there was less traffic then...
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We used to travel all over the place for our holidays with the combo. Often came back with either a different sidecar to the one we set out with or with a completly different outfit.
Did your Bond Minicar have the two rear inward facing seats and you got in (IIRC) after peeling back the canvas roof and climbing in with Dad fastening it up again after you.
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I was 16yrs when I had the Bond - It had a single bench seat and canvas roof.
I can remember Dad having a Bedford van in the late 50`s. One day he took me on one side before school and told me there may be a nuclear war. I can remember the serious look on his face and the subdued kids at school. It was the final day of the Cuban missile crisis.
Some time after i was playing with a friend in a field and the unmistakable deep pitched, undulating howl of an air raid siren came across the Calder valley. We walked calmly (counting down the 4 minutes) to a ditch at the side of the field and crouched as low as we could.
That`s one of the most enduring memories of stupid adult behaviour in childhood. The nuclear warning siren had been installed on the roof of a big engineering works and they ran a five minute test without bothering to tell the public.
Edited by oilrag on 24/01/2010 at 19:42
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I was conceived during the Cuban missile crisis - Dad had some Vauxhall or other in Air Force bllue no doubt. Surprised he found the time or inclination given his job. Lived through the Cold War in the 70s - where the plan was to drive to Welsh hills in whatever car had most fuel in it - we came close a few times and that's a fact.........mind you I reckon that modern cars wouldn't survive the EMP.
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Even in the early 1980`s and in my early 30`s, I can remember those pamphlets being issued about how to create a nuclear fall-out shelter from a house door, tape and cardboard.
We were all aware of the high ground around Morley/Tingley - South of Leeds - and wondering if an air-burst over Leeds centre would be line of sight to where we were - or whether the ridge would be high enough for protection.
We thought about EMP too.
Wonder how today`s kids and parents would react if you told them it may be nuclear war tomorrow.
Perhaps there would be more effort to blame the real guilty party - in seeking warmongering.
Edited by oilrag on 24/01/2010 at 20:08
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Don't worry about it, if there is an all out nuclear war the UK would be a smoking hole in the ground in minutes. No one is more than a few miles from a strategic target. And this is a small island in the grand scheme of things.
Edited by Old Navy on 24/01/2010 at 20:13
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That was 1962, Oilrag, I was a baby sailor on a destroyer in the Med at the time. We stored for war at Malta and did a fast transit to Gibraltar. Part of a master plan that I was not party to, no doubt.
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Apologies - I was born in 59 (62 model) - so my dad did have the time !!!
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Oily, I had a Bond as well, a 250 Model F I think. At the time of the Cuban crisis I was a very fresh Police Cadet. They used to have the nuclear alert monitor on all the time in the station, rather than just testing it every week. I remember seeing the crate of rifles being unloaded from the J type Morris van and brought into the charge office. These were to deal with public unrest and looting......we really were that close !
Ted
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Did your Bond Minicar have the two rear inward facing seats and you got in (IIRC) after peeling back the canvas roof and climbing in with Dad fastening it up again after you.
Yes we had the two inward-facing rear seats which were occupied by my sister and myself. I've mentioned it before on another thread, but.........no proper doors, just canvas flaps covering a door-shaped gap in the bodywork.
The specific model was one of these...
www.ridelust.com/wp-content/uploads/800px-Bond_Min...g
Edited by Armstrong Sid on 24/01/2010 at 20:44
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The specific model was one of these... www.ridelust.com/wp-content/uploads/800px-Bond_Min...g
>>
Thats the posh one, ours didn't have the dummy front wings. (50/52 model).
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Well AS youve certainly brought back a memory to me here. My father too had a combination. It was a vincent 500. In the sidecar my mother would sit at the front and me and my young sister at the back. Did many trips. Like you say kids would laugh nowadays.
I also remember nearly 50yrs ago going to Cornwall on the train it was an overnighter. Those big red Coaches with separate compartments end of journey was Penzance. happy memory.
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The obvious one is the black vinyl seats in the summer of '76 which were superheated to lava temperature, sitting on them with shorts and getting the pimple pattern of the seat branded into the backs of my legs.
The same summer warnings not to leave animals outside or being allowed to play in the grass field at Coldstream caravan park because the Adder population had exploded.
Frequent trips from Northumberland to Glasgow in the days before the Edinburgh bypass when everything went down Princes Street. Water temperature gauge nudging red and helping my Dad put an override manual switch in to switch the engine fan on as the automatic switch couldn't always be relied on.
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My memories of motoring in the 50s and 60s are vivid
Trips to Cornwall always started from home at some unearthly hour in the morning, (to get through london from Essex and to get to cornwall for "changeover time" At 3am I was carried from bed, into a nest on the back seat and covered in blankets and off we went.
This mean that passing Stonehenge was carried out at daybreak, with the mist curling round the stones, to a 5 year old terrified by the tales of Quatermass, this was a eye popping sight indeed. (is it just me or does anyone else feel any evil at Stonehenge? I am convinced the sacrificial ghosts still inhabit the place)
The next memory is the jam at the A30 at Jamaica Inn (even in those days)
Memories of Cornwall are dominated by the Pasties being too spicy (for a 5 year old) falling off the cliffs at Portreath and wondering if the car would get up Porlock Hill. I remember getting lost in Cornwall somewhere in a very sick Morris Series E, and finding ourselves in dead end at a breakers yard. The dilema was to turn round and find our route or just let the Morris die there in the yard.
We did Cornwall in luxury once, my dad hired a Ford Consul 375 off his fireman. We discovered the delights of vacuum operated wipers in that wagon!
I remember the first oversea trip.. To the Channel Islands. ( the boats were owned by British Rail, and the old man got a free "privi".) Grandma and Grandad came too. We traveled by train through the streets of Weymouth to the dockside, to see Grandads Austin A40 Devon van being craned into the hold of the SS Sarnia.
To finish the steam train link, I remember the old man driving a stock BR steam loco along the Wickford to Southminster branch, passing near to our house. He gave it large passing our place and on a tinderbox dry day, the firebox sparks set fire to the field that separated the house from the railway, turning into a bush fire of Australian proportions.
I proudly told the fire brigade that "My dad did that"
Many awkward question were asked upon his return.
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Sitting in the front bench seat of uncle Squirrel's (Cyril's) Vauxhall (pre E-type IIRC), watching him drive one handed while he used the other to roll himself a fag and light it.
Forgotten skills?
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Mom and dad in front and us three kids in back of pre war Post Office van going up Horseshoe pass in 50's - had to stop half way up to let it cool down - and we were going to Rhyl from Brum
We had a 500 Vincent in 60's - couldn't sell it so we buried it in garden along with load of Triumph bits.
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Dad didn't get a car till about 1960/1 so my early memories of road travel were on the back of me dad's 1947 350 Velocette (air forks too), the first car was a 57 Hillman Minx and we had many memorable trips out in the old jalopy and went on holiday to various seasides..previous to that it had been the train.
I remember going on the boat train (steam) via Crewe to Holyhead with my mother for my maternal grandmothers funeral in co Clare, my love of train travel probably stems from that trip, but the Irish train was a very modern and powerful Diesel which may have led to my love for Diesel trains in preference.
By the way that old Velocette was in lovely condition, i was looking forward to using it as i became older...imagine my disappointment when my dad gave it away (boo hoo) to a mechanic at Waters of Hatfield when i was 14 when we moved to Crockham Hill Kent, never laid eyes on it since.
The number i think was either AAV386 or AVV386.where are you..;)
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Used to cycle 6 miles to watch dirty 8Fs, Black 5s and 9Fs on the mainline and then another half mile to dodge the foreman at BRs last steam shed at Lostock Hall... that was the Summer weekdays of '68... at the weekends we used to pile in the back of Dad's Cambridge to go to Southport sands... and the ocassional trip in the back of our next door neighbours' Humber Super Snipe...
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The number i think was either AAV386 or AVV386
If it helps GB, plates with "AV" as the area code were issued by the VRO in Peterborough and plates with "VV" by the one in Northampton. Don't know if this would narrow it down, depends on exactly where you lived I guess.
Also ISTR it was down to each individual dealer to decide which Vehicle Registration office they used, certainly when I was a nipper (1970s-80s) the Vauxhall dealers in Biggleswade used Peterborough VRO whilst the Ford dealer used Luton.
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All my holliers were taken in Chalkwell, Westcliff on Sea where my mother's sister and her family lived. Uncle Sid was in charge of the apprentice training school at Fords, Dagenham. I remember he bought me home a cut out model to make in card of a newly announced Anglia 105E.. My mum was a widow so money was very tight and, of course, we never had a car.
Journeys down were made by train, invariably via the Midland main line from Manchester Central to St Pancras, usually pulled by a Stanier 4-6-0 Jubilee Class Loco. 10 minutes out we could see our house across the field...the Eastern region line branched off and ran at the end of our garden.
The trip took us through Millers Dale and Bakewell.......now a footpath, the Monsall trail.
A dash across London to Fenchurch Street saw us on a Southend bound train passing through all the places I can still list. Auntie May's was a short walk from the station.
We often took the trip at Christmas as well.
Happy days, as Betjeman wrote..... ' Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea '
Ted
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him drive one handed while he used the other to roll himself a fag and light it. Forgotten skills?
actually its quite easy to do once you get the hang of it
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>>The obvious one is the black vinyl seats in the summer of '76 which were superheated to lava temperature, sitting on them with shorts and getting the pimple pattern of the seat branded into the backs of my legs.
Oh I remember that all right, in Viva Estate after a cricket match.
My real childhood memory is fighting over the front seat with my brother until a fed up dad allowed us both to sit there, unrestrained. Or steering the Escort into the garageb from dads knee. Them were the days.
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My wee brother as an infant sleeping in the little gap behind the back seats in Dad's VW Beetle.
+1 on the vinyl seats in '76 - we drove to Eastbourne from Scotland (in a single 10 hour stint other than brief 'comfort stops'.
Going to see "The Cat from Outer Space" in the cinema with 9 of us (including driver) in an Austin Princess private hire cab.
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Dave TD, you're too young! AV was Aberdeen before 1974, so GB's Dad's Velocette hailed either from there (AAV) or Northampton (AVV).
Like Humph, I was lucky enough to sit between my parents in the front of the car - an Austin A40 Devon then an A55. In the A40 I could sometimes stand up with my head sticking up out of the sunroof: my father was a naval officer who had been sunk in HMS Courageous, and had a fairly courageous attitude to what one would now call passive safety (though he and my mum were both excellent drivers).
As I've said before on here, the other childhood memory is that the Austins always started first go in the morning: more than could be said for many Fords, Vauxhalls and Hillmans. In theory any car should start reliably, but some needed more frequent maintenance than others I suppose.
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Sitting in the front bench seat of Dad's Mk1 Ford Zephyr convertible, top down as we roared down Moor Rd from the A61 towards Bishop Monkton, me peering at the semicircular speedo to see what amazing speed we were doing (about 70), launching over the hump back bridge and feeling my legs unstick from the vast vinyl bench seat. Dad would open and shut his door which had clunked part open, then lean across me and do likewise. "Not a word to Mum", he would growl through his beard.
Watching Dad argue with a Lydd Airport official as the chap who was supposed to drive our Sunbeam Rapier into the Sliver City Bristol Freighter ground away at the starter. The car had been "breathed on" by Dad making the car difficult to start when hot and he wanted to go onto the tarmac and put the car in the aircraft himself.
Being encouraged to set a time in Mum's Hillman Imp 473 EWU at the end of a Cat's Eye Motor Club car gymkhana round the 'speed circuit' held in a field behind the Chequers Inn at Bishop Thornton. Urged on by Dad, I hung the tail out and collected a dozen canes used to mark out the circuit in the rear bumper. I was thrilled. My chum was faster in his dad's Zodiac though.
Helping Mum start her bedraggled Morris 8 "Edwina" by flooring it as she swung the starting handle.
Trying desperately to understand where to find the next gear on the worn column shift in my uncle's Bedford CA Dormobile as me and my cousin thrashed it round the field at the back of his house.
That'll do for now :-)
Edited by Hawkeye {P} on 25/01/2010 at 03:15
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This is a lovely thread and I've really enjoyed reading it:)
I can't really contribute as we never had a car when I was a child and went everywhere by steam train from Peterborough station.
I do however remember being told to kneel on the seat and push hard, by my Dad, as the traing went chuff, chuff faster and faster.
He convinced me for years that it was me pushing that got the train going!
This is a pleasure after the recent nit picking and back biting in the backroom.
Pat
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Thanks Pat. A little deja vu perhaps ;-)
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Surprisingly enough, Pat, I've seen parents still do that "pushing" thing, though it tends to be on the diesel powered local services into Brum... There's a big hill there!
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....and all these years I thought I was the only 3yr old who could push a train!
Pat
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Level crossing on a rural line where you opened and closed the gates yourself.
There was a noticing reminding drivers to close the gates again after passing, but so many forgot and trains arrived with gates festooned on their buffers that they abandoned them and made it a crossing with no gates.
Lovely little road sign of a steam engine puffing smoke.
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Level crossing on a rural line where you opened and closed the gates yourself.
Level crossings on a rural line where you had to ring a bell to get the crossing keeper to come out of his house to open/close the gates.
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Weve still got a few of those in the Fen!
Pat
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When I was about 14 I was standing on the pavement with a friend near my home. We lived on a main A road. In the distance we saw a a very low silver car approaching. As it passed we were surprised to see that it was a Ford GT40. I remember noticing its number plate as it was similar reg to a car another friend of mine had.
Many years later I was at a motoring event in France and I recognised this same Ford GT 40.
Although I hadn't memorised the registration exactly, there was enough in my head to be sure it was the same car. It turns out that DWC 8G was a prototype for a planned road-going version of the Ford GT40 that never went into production. It has always been owned by Ford. A year or two later, I met up with this car again, and ended up having a long and fairly rapid ride in it as a passenger!
Incidentally, since then, the car has been repainted white.
photos.evo.co.uk/images/front_picture_library_UK/d...g
Edited by Sofa Spud on 25/01/2010 at 10:47
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One of my earlierst car memories was in about 1975, Dad had his company 1100 Escort in for a service and was given a Dolomite 1500TC for the day. He took me to playschool in it and I marvelled at the red flashing "Fasten Seat Belts" light on the dash.
Dad told me it had to have this because it was a much faster car than the Escort. I used to have to wear a belt in the front seat of the Escort anyway, but with this flashing light the Dolomite seemed exotic and a bit of a beast.
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My mates grandad occasionally told us the tale from the first few weeks of the M1 being open, he was able to borrow a friends XK120 and went for a blast down the motorway at 100+ mph.
He said he encountered a couple of slower cars in the outside lane, gave them a few flashes of the lights and then a toot of the horn as he passed and got a few cheery waves of encouragement in return.
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as a kid in the 1960,s i used to get ferried around alot with my schoolmate who,s dad had a ford zephyr mk 1v, the bonnet emblem was great as an imaginary gunsight. also i remember going to skegness in the family car ( ford cortina mk1 estate) all nine of us
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Everything comes around eventually.....
If we went to my grandmas for a day, to stop my sister and myself getting bored, we'd be taken to the nearby footbridge to watch the trains going by. That was exciting. In those days (early 1960s) the line only had goods trains, which went to and from the north Nottinghamshire pits - one direction full of coal, the other direction coming back with empty wagons. There were no passenger trains because they'd all been discontinued during the 1950s.
Stand on that same bridge today and there are no coal trains because the all pits have gone, but the passenger trains have now come back and do a thriving service.
Who would've predicted that 40 years ago?
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Sort of on topic then here's a colour video clip from the Pathe archives of the Royal Scot being moved by road in 1963:-
www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=1595
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Interesting clip, Spammers. The Royal Scot was taken to Butlins at Skegness in 1963 as a static exhibit.......except it wasn't ! The actual engine we have now in the National Collection is 6152 The King's Dragoon Guardsman which swapped identities with no. 6100 in 1933 when the loco made a tour of the USA. Strong evidence shows that the identities were never swapped back on return.
The loco is now in main line running condition having been restored at Southall.
Hope the ' Spamcans ' are running well down there !
Ted
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Getting stuck on a hill in the middle of Dartmoor in the mid-1950s with my great-aunt's heavily-loaded Austin 10. Until then - when my father pointed it out - she didn't realise it had four gears and had never used first...
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Everyone wearing a tie on the video clip - and looking a little on the thin side too. Ten years or so earlier and there was rationing on sweets. I can remember the wonder of white chocolate becoming available in the early 50`s. I can actually remember being given the first bar and biting into it - in the post office at Lofthouse in Yorkshire.
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A good clip, the Police car driver had been at the donuts though!
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Did I spot a scooter and sidecar at about the forty second mark?
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yes a lambo ld150 from the look of it.
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I watched some of the sixties mods-and-rockers movie Quadrophenia last night. Scooters with about sixty mirrors and little horns mounted on them to slow them down even more... I'm a rocker in my soul I'm afraid although in those days I looked more like a mod. Slightly silly movie but I suppose the young must have thought it thrilling at the time.
Austere times were during the war when my father (for a while) used to take me to school on his huge black pushbike. He had made a little saddle for me on the crossbar and a footrest, the old darling. Later in Ceylon there was no austerity for us. The Ford V8 was great, the Humber Snipe even better and the best-looking car I have ever seen: matt grey, girders for bumpers, huge fat desert tyres and the radiator grille rubbed down to polished brass by local drivers. I used to be allowed to change gear and stand on the front seet with my head out of the sunroof opening. The shiny black or navy blue Hillman that followed it was a huge letdown. One of the pool cars was an amphibious jeep which I really fancied, but my father didn't. The army had two magnificent Cadillacs. I also did a lot of miles as a passenger in noisy, uncomfortable Chevrolet 15cwt. trucks: a forward-control chassis with a V8 engine, 4wd and a body made of laths and hardboard. The navy had lots of them. I even went upcountry to school in one once, along with a bunch of sailors going on leave in the hills.
I've said all this before of course, or most of it. Sorry about that.
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Looked a bit square at the back for an LD 150, looks like an ice cream freezer sidecar attachment.
I had a couple od LD150's and a J125 starstream but in browsing the Pathe website I found the following attachments I never had....
www.scooter-sidecars.com/2009/06/lambretta-sidecar...l
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I had a couple od LD150's and a J125 starstream but in browsing the Pathe website I found the following attachments I never had.... www.scooter-sidecars.com/2009/06/lambretta-sidecar...l
LOL, what on earth is the power to weight ratio of that combo? Poor little scooter is hauling itself, a sidecar, two adults, one kid,a trailer about 5 by 3 and a (wooden ?) boat!
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LOL what on earth>>
Don't laugh too loud, people of that generation are a tough bunch, and a lot more self sufficient than later editions.
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Everyone wearing a tie on the video clip - and looking a little on the thin side too.
Yes, as something of a trainspotter I've seen many photos of railtours from the early sixties, the standard railway enthusiasts' 'uniform' is very noticeable; shirt and tie, long mac - all usually in shades of grey or brown - and a hat of course.
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Our family transport in the 60s when I were a lad was an Austin J2 minibus thing. I can remember it as being not very comfortable, but had loads of room for us three kids to mess about in.
It had inward facing seats at the back, but this area was saved for our very large St Bernard which I remember disliked being transported so would deposit great amounts of slobber over these seats and the back window. It also shed fur everywhere so was not the best travelling companion.
A rare treat was being allowed to sit on the engine cover between the front passenger seat and the driver's seat, again not comfortable as there was no padding on it.
I think dad got fed up as we got older as we often volunteered him to take our various football teams etc around in it, so it was changed to a lovely Austin Westminster after the dog died.
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Either we never went anywhere??
or I cant remember? owt before about 1974 (when I was 15) a green Vauxhall Victor 2 litre with a high compression head needing 5 star.
I do remember Mum doing 80/90 odd when nipping over to Maghera to visit her mother.
Cars before that? absolutly NO idea, strange.
After one brief run as a learner driver in the Victor, once I was the age, it was put off the road. With approx 40,000 miles on it, the cost of petrol was probably also a factor alongwith my insurance.
Where it sat in a barn until about perhaps 5 years ago when the brother gave it away for a local enthuasist to restore.
Sigh
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