My mother in front of the bonnet of the green saloon, around 1977.We'd had Moggies before of course. My grandparents ran a traveller, and my own family had had two that I remember. The first, a powdery (brush-painted?) white saloon which succumbed to the dreaded snapped trunnion on a sharp bend, and the other, a green '54 split-screen 4-door saloon which my father had modified with twin carbs, special valves and a van exhaust! He told me recently that he has never equaled the journey times he achieved in that little car even with a modern MG, or a Jaguar. He was a musician and traveled all over the country for work in it. He took the passenger seat out to fit in his double bass, and balanced it on my mum's dressing table stool in the footwell. It went like stink and cornered like a roller skate! As a child I once sat on his lap and steered it up the un-made lane in Yorkshire on one of our childhood holidays. We drove from Wimborne to Whitby in it with two adults, three kids and two dogs all shoe-horned in! My dad built a trailer for the luggage.
This car had several little foibles, one of which was a sticking valve. We carried a hammer for unsticking it, and now and again my mother would have to hop out, whip off the rocker cover, and give the offender a quick whack with the hammer to release it. The other problem was a broken accelerator return spring bracket. The fix consisted of a small piece of wood, just the right size and diameter, wedged against the exhaust manifold. The heat of the manifold would periodically burn through the piece of wood, and the engine would suddenly rev uncontrollably until a new piece of wood was inserted in the right spot. The car was stolen once from outside our house in Dorset. The police found it abandoned in Shepton Mallet some 50 odd miles away. The little piece of wood had burned away and the driver had lost heart for the crime. Perhaps the little car had had enough of the night-time excursion.
With this history of and affection for Morris Minors revived by the Old Kent Road sighting my plan went into action. My driving teacher Cheryl was quite unperturbed by the idea, and cheerfully reported sightings of vans and sometimes pick-ups to me every week when we had a lesson.
This car had several little foibles, one of which was a sticking valve. We carried a hammer for unsticking it, and now and again my mother would have to hop out, whip off the rocker cover, and give the offender a quick whack with the hammer to release it. The other problem was a broken accelerator return spring bracket. The fix consisted of a small piece of wood, just the right size and diameter, wedged against the exhaust manifold. The heat of the manifold would periodically burn through the piece of wood, and the engine would suddenly rev uncontrollably until a new piece of wood was inserted in the right spot. The car was stolen once from outside our house in Dorset. The police found it abandoned in Shepton Mallet some 50 odd miles away. The little piece of wood had burned away and the driver had lost heart for the crime. Perhaps the little car had had enough of the night-time excursion.
With this history of and affection for Morris Minors revived by the Old Kent Road sighting my plan went into action. My driving teacher Cheryl was quite unperturbed by the idea, and cheerfully reported sightings of vans and sometimes pick-ups to me every week when we had a lesson.
Myself, my sister and brother in the trailer my dad built, around 1977.
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