thedreamtime

The Dream Time

We all set out in life with aims and ideas as to what we want to do and which direction we would like to try to get there . This is my attempt to relate my own thoughts and experiences in this direction, It is intended to be informative and entertaining for those interested in motoring matters .

Grandfather was a brilliant engineer,during the era� of steam. A product of� a different time when work was hard to find,steady employment even for the talented ,was the be all and end all. He understood the atributes of steam being the only system that gives maximum torque from zero rpm. something not matched in todays world

Family Coat of arms

Grandma and Grandad West

�He was employed by Babcock and Wilcox Engineering as a head of installations being responsible for� all matters including comissioning and� testing , of the many steam driven� sytems introduced into industrial factories in the early part of the 1900s.
with job security a hard won thing , he accepted every contract he was offered,

The prodigious amount of travelling that this entailed gave rise to periods of separation untill conttracts could be signed and
acomodation for the growing family found, making the unit a very travelled entity with stable relationships hard to establish.

From my earliest recollection the family included six brothers ,who incidentally were all born in different towns, Rob, Lewis (father) ,Sid,Fred,Reg & Ron.all had the genetic link� from grandfather with a total fascination with all things mechanical. Gladly exchanging� the alleged,polution that the new age transport the motor car represented ,in place of a ride, in a carriage behind� a horse especially in hilly country.

The Thirties

Apprenticeships were always purported� to be the one way to a secure future.� Skilled engineers would�� always� be� needed� commanding� respect and able to attain financial security.(according� to grandfather)?Having had the good forune to pass out from a excellent gramar school in Cambridge   with what   was an excellent   school certificate, I Felt a need to make some real progress towards financial independance , a place at university was offered but could not realy be contemplated.I felt that it wa stime I did what I could to start to payback for the time my parents subsidised me to give the best education that was within their financial ability. This would change with the advent of the electronic world, computers etc.
My father managed to get me a place on an aprenticeship scheme with the local Marshalls Aircraft worksThey were broadening their traning schemes to include a full 5 year indentured course to include a full and thorough grounding in all the engineering skills in the essential trades to give the pupil the skills to enable a real chance of attaining certfication with The   Air Registration Board if desired.
I recall towards the end of my 5 year termI I was seconded to a preflight section that had its hanger adjacent to Newmarket Road.
Many sightings of Archies Scott-Browns Lister on its way to Snetterton on trade plates for testing and development seemed to awaken in me an interest that I could not feel for the flying world. " The Sport " seemed to be a more attainable field to use the knowledge and expertise gained durinrg my 5 Yrs trainng,
Llight weight, aerodynamics, need of meticulous attention to detail in all ones efforts , seemed to me to make the best use of the ablities gained during the apreticeship just finished.
At the end of My indentured period, a letter dropped on to the mat with my call up papers for my National Service,which in itself was a bit of a disaster as my days of meagre salary levels were to be extended for another two years ,I did however manage to secure a firm guaratee of re-employment after the period should I desire to return to Marshalls

Uncle Sid with an austin special he built for
Brooklands( a well known reg today)

Early family involvement in the vogue sport involving motor cars

.,My national� service was served in the RAF and as such managed to get promotion to� technician status due to my technical background in the aircraft� field, travelled� around the country� from the� Wirral, The Fylde, North� Yorkshire, finishing at East Midlands,� all� experiences in themselves. more of these experiences will feature later.

Don, Archie and the famous MVE 303

Marshalls airport as it is today

�� Cambridge at this time was the home of the magnificent Lister Car Company manufacturers of racing sports cars. Their star driver was Archie Scott-Brown a man of huge charisma in spite of some physical impairment in his legs and one arm., a pioneer in the use of� Snetterton ,His driving ability was legendary, which when combined with the meticulous engine preparation of Mr Don Moore. made Listers a formidable team, and a force� to be reckoned with ,any where they went, sadly� Archie got kllled at Spa shortly� before I joined Don Moore.
Don had for many years been the man to beat on the hills in his ultra light P type MG, Quick Silver,,Highly polished body panels to save weight.
He had had a nasty moment rolling the MG at a national hill venue traping his shoulder which gave him some arm mobility problems as the years went on. The loss of Archie was a huge blow to Don and the Lister operation , Don was looking to progress into the saloon car racing world , He told father that he was looking for someone to help broaden the operation at Cambridge Place .Which backed onto fathers place of work.
An iterview was arranged ,we had a meeting and terms discussed and agreed , Thus started the momentus change in direction for me
The skills learnt in the aircraft world would stand me in good stead in the years to come.

Don in amongst the Webers

The doctors car was quite special in as much it had a very special engine produced by the designer Mr H Westlake .
by the time the CambridgePlace team had breathed on it became the car to beat , many tried not many succeeded.!!!!!

Many happy days preparing cars and manufacturing "go faster parts" for all sorts of cars , During term time the university gave
Cambridgeplace (a Mews type of situation ) the benifit of many customers with quality cars that needed to be looked after by people that knew their job and were enthusiastic about the product.
There were many callers several destined to become famous by their efforts in what was at that time a very dangerous sport.
We carried out normal routine servicing as well as doing major overhauls for the more specialised vehicles of some clients.
"The sport " was never far from the scene,
The Saloon car racing scene was developing fast and Dons approach to the problems that this entailed meant that successes came very regulary, The cars of the moment in the small class was the austin A35 & the the Farina A40 we built and suported the most famous of the A40s that of Doctor Shepherdwho made his mark giant killing in the saloon car fields of the day.

The highly modified BMC A Series engine spent quite a lot of time on the engine dyno at Westlakes in search of even more power,This meant that it needed a rebuild after almost every dyno session to maintain the mechanical integrity of ths unit.
The Doc , as he was known, needed quite small amounts of sleep , He often went off to Snetterton in the midle of the night ,, as the circuit was in a largly unpopulated area his only comment was that he thought it much less frightening to practice at night `, fortunatly there was never to my knowledge any major incident..

Enter the mighty mini

�� The� Mini by� now had been launched and� the Cooper� variant� envisaged and put into� production� some

�� competition experience� had� begun� to be gathered� .BMC� as� it� was then� used several of the� recognised� tuning

�specialists� as think tanks� to enable the� development of the Cooper to� proceed apace� hence� the regular� visits��

To cambridge Place Cambridge� of� the Abingdon� set� Dougies Hamlin and Watts the� work that went on� was rightly� quite secretive as the future successes of this magnificent little carwere in the making.

Many traumas were� tackled and solutions� found , in� such a groundbraking advance as the mini represented this was inevitable, when one� considers the advances made over the level of road holding that had been the previously accepted� norm. The cornering potential was so great that the load carrying ability of the original road wheels was not capabe of coping with one or two separations so back to the drawing board at Rubery Owen new wheels of thicker material solved that problem,, The original design of the clutch.was for an oil fed bearing to carry the unit during declutching, resulting in no grip as the oil found its way to the friction material. The oil feed was discontinued , after several embarasing events during which Vim had to be administered via the Ign timing aperture just to finish. Dunlop had some trouble with delamination of the new copetition tyre the SP3 These teething troubles dealt with set this magnificent car on course for its truly meteroic results stream that is now the stuff of legend, taking many people from fame to Household names namely Sir John whitmore, John Aley,Christabel Carlisle, Paddy Hopkirk, John Rhodes, John Handley ,Timo Makinen ,Rauno Altonen to name but a few.

John Handley

Paddy the maestro

Oulton Park works Mini

The chaos that is motor sport

     This remarkable lady was most formidable when straped into her   beloved mini CMC 7.
              On many occaisions   she showed that a good lady driver is more than a match for good male drivers,she had many wins my last event with Don and Christabel was the tragic Goodwood meeting when Sir Stirling had his huge accident ,

One marque that Don always held in high esteem was Alfa Romeo, being a true enthusiast apreciative of the huge amont of automobile history rolled up in those two words.with direct links to the very best in the automobile world .
Our visits to the Motor Show in this era always rounded off by us all meeting up at the Alfa stand to wonder at the latest creations in style and class with amagic all their own but with insufficent apreciation for the needs to withstand a british winter in the corrosion resistance dept.

Christabel leading the works minis at Christal Palace
Following this titanic battle Christabel lost her clutch towards the end of the race.

The arrival of our recent firstborn meant that greater pressure was building on me to get a firm plan in place to improve my earning power. Frank Hamlin was planning to return to New Zealand offered me a positon in a new enterprise he was giong to start down under , I had another offer from one of the Cambridge Racing chaps to do a similar thing in the north of England.. the story of that way to the future comes later in "North to Alaska"

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