> Okay, I'll bite - a Rugby would be...?!
>
Very old car - Ford T vintage and style though usually a light truck. It
was my Dad's first car, the one he courted Mum in, and apparently it was
horrible. The seats were hessian bags stuffed with straw. The steering was
so loose it was better to stick a front wheel in a rut and let it follow
that. The exhaust was so loud, Dad used to park it down the street from
Mum's place so he didn't wake her parents when bringing her home. I've
never seen a photo of the thing, but both Mum and Dad tell stories about
it. As background info - this all occurred in Renmark, a small river port
on the River Murray. Mum's father owned the local BMC dealership
(compulsory LBC content, but fact strangely enough) and was a leading light
in the business and social community. Dad's father was a soldier settler
and owned a small fruit block just outside of town. Dad was probably lucky
to have owned something as flash as the Rugby. So here we had a young
couple at opposite ends of the social stratum, yet there has never been any
hint of Mum's parents disapproving of their eldest daughter's choice. Says
a lot for their lack of snobbishness and strength of character.
During WW1, Dad's father fought with the Light Horse in the middle east. He
missed Gallipoli. When he returned to Oz, he was eligible for a small
holding in one of the new irrigation settlements being set up then - the
govt sold him the land, provided irrigation water, and he had to do the
rest. Hence he was known as a Soldier Settler. He suffered a lot of illness
due to his service and sadly died when I was three.
Mum's father, having started as a general hand in the local workshop in
Renmark, had started his own tyre retreading works just before the war.
Tyre retreading was regarded as an essential industry during WW1 and he was
prevented from entering the armed forces - all our soldiers until Vietnam
were volunteers. Between the wars, he built his tyre retreading works up to
having the Austin dealership which later became the BMC dealership. He
continued with that until he retired in the sixties - too early for it to
have much impact on me.
My Mum as a young girl, used to ferry new cars from Adelaide to Renmark -
300 miles on dirt roads. The story is that when she went in to apply for
her driver's licence, the copper looked at her and said "It's about time
isn't it?"
Needless to say, Grandpa was always very supportive of any interest I had
in cars (not that it was great until I was in my twenties). He taught me to
drive in a ZA Magnette and made more drooling noises than anyone else when
I finally bought my first B.
And all of this is a lot of personal history. I apologise to anyone I've
bored and can only offer the excuse that this has helped me avoid tackling
that short story I'm supposed to be writing - procrastination rules.
Cheers
Richard
'76 B - the latest in a respectable list.
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Anne and Richard Spurling
http://www.geocities.com/twisted-lines
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