Seen here in the passenger seat of his Austin-Healey Sprite, as we bounced back to Stontonbury Fields earlier this summer, is my little nephew Will. My other little nephew Matt (1943 Jeep Rebuild) is close behind in Toby's 1948 Land-Rover. The Land-Rover is being driven by my very little nephew Ted. To Matt goes the credit for this shot. That's me in the hat.
I had only driven a Frog once before, about thirty years ago; a dreadful heap that a 'collector' was trying to flog near Melton Mowbray. He had a droopy moustache and, in his office, a ridiculous, red leather, deep buttoned swivel chair. The house, all of five years old, had far too many faux Georgian windows with wildly inappropriate bottle glass. He kept banging on about 'the collection'. Pushing him further, this turned out to be a Triumph Herald and a rusty V12 E Type on stands. His Frogeye drove like a bag of spanners. Stepping out of the Sprite, and back into my heavy, comfortable, quiet, Sunbeam Alpine was an enormous relief.
Will has done a much better job on the Sprite shown here. It felt fantastically direct and sorted. Like all Healeys it is also tiny; so tiny, we later calculated, that were the Fibonacci Peugeot Boxer van not full of my kit, I could have driven it straight in and taken it home. The thought certainly crossed my mind.
10 comments:
Nice hat.
What memories of the Stonton Rave. The beer, the music, the food...the game of 'Hunt the Necklace'. Did we ever find out who parked the dreadful green van in the field? Probably a Pikey....
How come I missed the Stonton thingy? Particularly as it was only about three fields away. Not that I'm paranoid or anything.
Peter, you'll have to ask Toby, assuming he ever returns from his 'Awaken The Power Animal Within: The Man/Beast Conundrum Explored' weekend in Frinton.
My brother had a Frogeye. He stuffed it up the back of a Devon General Atlantean bus (No 12 route, Newton Abbot - Torquay - Paignton) on the Teign Bridge in about 1966. After that he got an E-type and left half of it 20' up a tree on the Totnes Road.
The second Mrs F-A had a Woodeneye. It was forbidden to say the word "not" in her presence.
Just been reading Saturday's Telegraph. It says a lot for their readership that they manage to vote the Mk 1 Sprite as the 100th ugliest car of all time....ie doddering, myopic, fascist old fossils all! It CAN'T be uglier than a Nissan Bluebird, Vauxhall Victors FB, FC and FE (FD wasn't bad!), amongst a host of others. Mind you, they voted the Bristol Blenheim into 97th place so they're not all bad!!!
Nice Blog Fred. I particularly like the unprecedented degree of accuracy in your profile. Just to update all those interested. I’m back from a short excursion.
The Sprite's crankshaft pulley disintegrated recently. Will tried in vain to get it off, so is using the incident as a prompt to lash out on a new engine...... Soon.
Peter, You were invited to Stontonbury! I emailled you and we spoke about it verbally, mouth to mouth. You probably had to stay in to wash your hair that day!
I'm so sorry Toby, you're absolutely right. The days just seem to run into one another...I must have been re-applying Grecian 2000 on the four hairs I have left.
Just to sum it up, Peter: the weekend provided the best weather of the year, one of the best live bands in the UK played, the beer was free (and cold), the food was marvellous, the company great and the girls gorgeous and more-or-less naked. Other than that, you didn't miss much.
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