Ah!...harken to the Jackboot...

Have you ever belonged to a forum?

Or a Yahoo special interest group?

Have you ever felt the need to have a go at sections of society that get your goat or make a perfectly valid comment on the world wherein you are showing your completeness as an individual?

Oh dear me. I said it, didn't I? Individual. Oh Lordy, the "I" word. The word that differentiates us from the crowd, that makes us independently who we are.

The one word you must never get close to on a Forum...Or they'll come for you. The sad little men whose miserable lives are given some semblance of importance by their having been "elevated" to the internet peerage of MODERATOR. Oh the glory!...oh the respect at the Parish Council Coffee Mornings! Oh!, the admiration of those poor also-rans who aspire, but have never managed to, lick enough derriere or cowtow and forlock-tug to the "right" people in such a way as to be asked to spend the rest of their hobby time lording it over people with a point of view and a sense of humour.

For mentioning how, if you told a kid in the street to pick his litter up these days, you'd probably get a kick in the nuts, I have been strongly censured on a forum called RMWeb, the biggest model railway forum. My posts were doctored by a man whose avatar is a fantasy reptile!!

I imagine, when he retires at night, that he checks for any under his bed.

So, I am not to say what everybody else on any forum that I've been on would say with complete impunity, what every journalist, letter writer, vox pop member of the public is saying about modern life on our streets. But say it in an overly precious and self important model railway forum and you are held as "likely to be inflammatory". What, tell me, is inflammatory about the truth, about something which is on the lips of everyone, in homes, pubs, clubs, offices, on the streets...everywhere!

Perhaps I should make a small model scene of a street full of council houses in which an old lady is being knocked off her pavement scooter and and a still active old chap has come out of his house to find the local yobs have up-ended his Reliant Robin for the third time. Would Lizard Man stop my model being shown on his forum?

Yet I know of exactly those cases having happened recently in just such circumstances. Truth, you see?

Ziegheil, little Lizard Man. it all starts like this.

Let the Fox see the chicken

Having been carless for a while due to having lived afloat for a while, my wife and I decided that perhaps we could risk a little money on getting mobile again. Just a bit of independence from having to borrow our daughter's car.

It was necessary to have a car which was at the lowest tax point or even tax exempt, but equally important to have one with low insurance (i.e. Classic Car insurance) and to be very economical.

Our original plans to use an Austin 7 came to nought when the Ruby project fell through and another could not be found, so a bit of lateral thinking came up with..... the Reliant.

Now I'm fine with the idea of 3 wheels, but Chris couldn't get used to it, so a four wheeler it had to be and when I asked around the Reliant firmament, a Fox was offered.

A rugged, simple, 848cc, 12" wheeled, pick up with a lift off van body. All in fibreglass with a galvanised steel chassis.

We went to see it, Chris loved it and now we await the little gem having its MOT test and some tidy-up.

Our plans for it are to paint it in a nice rich mid-blue called Sapphire and to detail it in very pale blue and aluminium, me being a keen basher of that metal. It sits in beige at present and, like golf, I hope I am never so feeble as to like biege.

The best kind of R & R...

After a bit of an attempted mauling on the slot racing forum from a dissatisfied customer, I felt like some relaxation away from the pressures of a super active forum full of egos.

My favourite way to do that has always been silence, solitude, perhaps Radio 4 and model scenery.

In various measures.

This had got me back to my first passion in modelmaking, model landscape and architecture. I was born, it seems, with a love of vernacular architecture and although I have often drawn it and painted it, even drawn it officially for Councils to pore over in committee meetings, it is only models of buildings which ever really satisfies.

The tiny yard office at Grindley Brook Locks, Welsh canal

I made my first building when I was about 10. It was a little scratch-built flint dashed forge. I used poppy seeds as un-knapped flints. I was given some ancient copper foil rolled into a good scale corrugated which I used for the roof. Because I had no layout as such, I put it on a grassy base and kept it as that. A scenic set-piece. I have built many such set-pieces over the years, rarely having space for a layout.

I also have a love of estuaries, having spent many childhood weekends on the Essex coastal waterways. One day, when missing the clean air and the sounds of the saltings I made this little set-piece to get it out of my system. Just about 9 inches square, I put it on whatever I had under the bench in the way of a base board, yet it turned into one of my best pieces.

I can find inspiration anywhere, as in that tiny office above, so perfect in its proportion and fitness for purpose.

This is an old village cinema, now, alas, a hairdresser's emporium!

Imagine the queues of young lovers all desperate to get to the back rows in the days when it would have definately been known as the local "flea-pit", before the ugly cement dashed finish ruined the old bricks.

Here is the little country garage in the same village as the "Cinema Salon". Now used only for repairs to cars as the government has allowed the foreign unelected parliament to force stringent and unnecessary rules on small British businesses which cost so much to administer that they are forced to close in full or in part.

I have known this place for over thirty years. You could, at one time, choose from a whole line of Austin Healeys, Pipers, tuned up Imps and Mini-Coopers, to name but a few. The proprietor himself used to race. Now he is waiting for the economy to upturn again so he can redevelop the site because rules and unstoppable vandalism have made the business untenable. Just as well that I made a model of the office years ago then, eh? Another occasion when I needed the peace of architecture. Frozen music.

Comments on the blog

Not being very computer savvy, I have no idea how to answer people when they kindly leave a comment on the blog.
I would appreciate any viewer of the blog clueing me up on the methods.

Meanwhile, Jim, thankyou for your kind comments on the models and the Albatross in particular.
I had Hull No. 135., a Mk 1. I bought it from a chap in Yorkshire. It had a Consul Corsair 1500cc pushrod, pre-crossflow Ford engine. I wanted to put a side valve 10 back in or even a Coventry Climax, but the cost of rebuilding even a humble Ford 10 seems outrageous these days, so whilst it was cheap to buy one (my wife paid £90 for it), rebuilding it to a high level was to have cost much more than I paid for the boat! So the 120E engine got a clean up and put back in. New steering pullies and cables and a respray and off it went to a new owner when I got kicked out of the CMBA for telling a home truth or two about the museums in this country. No club, no water to go fast on, no point in the boat.
If you send me a comment with just your e-mail address, I can note it, but refuse the comment for publication then talk to privately about the models.
Thanks.

BXE 599, where are you!...

My Uncle recently scanned in and sent me some marvellous old Box Brownie shots of his Special as it grew, back in the late 50s/early 60s.
BXE 599 started life as an Austin Seven Ruby. Stripped of her bodywork she would have looked like this.

My Uncle was only 16 when he started this project and in fact, only 21 when he sold it, having used it for getting to work and for a long journey to Bristol. Here he is in our Bristol aunt's driveway.My Dad had built specials earlier and was obviously a good help-at-hand for my Uncle, since we lived over the road from where the car was being built.

Here he gives invaluable advice on steering geometry!

Behind them in that photo, all sorts of magic happened. My Granddad made his own paints and stains in the shed in the background for his work as a grainer and marbler and off to the right was where my Nan made her own wines and repaired all the family's bikes and resoled our shoes! Beyond both was a large garden in which grew most of the ingredients of the wine making. Remarkably my Nan never touched a drop of any of the hundreds of wines she ever made. I recall her parsnip to have been my favourite. Her rosehip was delicious, but gave me nightmares!

Unique as far as I know among specials, BXE had a hardtop. A removable accessory for the winter months which my Uncle made.

The eagle-eyed Special Builders among you will recognize some nice touches of the times amongst the goodies on this car.

A finned Aluminium cylinder head, but I'm not sure of which make. A four branch exhaust manifold and a nice twin SU side-draught inlet set up.

There's also an independent front suspension set up, possibly by Super Accessories or Bowndenex. My Uncle made many of his own parts including the header tank for the then quite rare crossflow radiator.

The very professional looking double hump scuttle always sets a special apart, I think, and BXE was no exception. It always makes for an attractive dashboard shape.

The lovely old spring-spoke steering wheel sets off a nice cockpit and never better than the Brooklands Bluemell's.

I'm delighted to learn that a spare one of these which hung in my Grandad's garage for years after BXE was sold is now in my Uncle's basement and he's promised it for my Cambridge Special.

That's a very special thing for me as I used to look longingly at that old wheel every time I was in my Grandad's workshop!

If anyone knows of the whereabouts or fate of this lovely special, please let me know.

And some more....

Since posting the last piece on Specials I've decided to put my money where my mouth is effectively and I have started an Austin Seven Specials Register under the auspices of the Austin Seven Clubs Association.
So far we have 39 fully written up sets of details about peoples' cars. We have home builts, Cambridges and Ulster replicas in about that order of popularity. We have some very old, even ex-Brooklands cars, too, which I never expected.
If anyone reading this blog has an A7 Special or knows someone who does, please let me know.

More on the Specials

I knew that I would finally find some relevant pictures of my special-building family and though it took my Mum's recent death, I'm sure she'll be pleased to know that amongst her old pictures and photos were these two old Box brownie shots.

The above one is my Dad, in his de-mob suit, standing proudly by his first special. Alas no pictures exist of the later two, but it was great to even get a Reg. no. in the view.

The louvred side valance was a very de luxe feature for a Special!

And this one is of me at about 10 months old, cranking my Dad's other A7 or it could be my Grandad's car, which Dad always drove as my Grandad didn't pass his test until I was in my late childhood!

All this driving down memory lane has got me back "into" specials and I have joined the Bristol Austin 7 Club and my local old-car club and have already got a line on some parts to begin the project. I've decided to build a Cambridge style special, using as many period style bits and pieces as I can find. The search alone should be fun.

I will leave the bodywork in unpainted aluminium, with Cambridge blue cycle wings, which I will attempt to make myself, using for skills what little I can pick up from books and watching old craftsmen at work.

Here's a Cambridge from which I'm making scale drawings as it's a nice square side view.

I'm sure with enough browsing through all the kinds of books and club magazines I used to have I can re-aquaint myself with my favourite old car. Fortunately there are so many knowledgeable types out there who remember every part number, design change date and type number there is and they're always so friendly in the Austin 7 world. Few cars of such humble origins can have crossed the divide between the luxury car (Rolls-Royce, etc), the true enthusiast (Vintage Sports Car Club) and the ordinary impecunious fan ...like the Austin Seven.