It's a Small World
If memory serves me right it was a lovely sunny Sunday morning on 22nd September 2013, my wife and I were taking a ride in our Reliant Scimitar SE5a to the 40s weekend held at Wimpole Hall.
The weather was superb and we were grateful for the wabasco roof as it was unusually warm and the fresh air made the journey from St Ives a much better experience, we take air conditioning for granted in modern cars nowadays.
On arrival the venue was extremely busy with lots of trade stalls in the field on the left of the path to the house. We had a look at various stalls and one in particular caught my attention, the owners had various leather goods that had been hand made by themselves, this lead me to later purchasing tools and materials with a view to learn some of the skills but I digress!.
We then headed off to an area where a nice collection of period cars were parked and I was soon deep in conversation with owners.
One couple in particular stick in my mind. They owned a very well presented 1932 Austin 16 Tourer. The chap was in period clothes and was very knowledgeable about any potential issues when making a purchase of such vehicles. This kept us in conversation because I knew about an Austin Heavy 12 that was up for sale near me and although it was in a sorry state I was considering the purchase to restore as a hospital job.
After a pleasant conversation with the very enthusiastic owner of the Austin 16 including a story about a trip in convoy that they had made with some friends in another car to the Isle of Wight, he gave me a card with his details on and told me to contact him if I made the purchase and needed any help.
The afternoon was rounded off with a flypass by a Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota in "D day" livery, developed from the civilian DC3 airliner.
I Later decided not to proceed with the purchase as I didn't have enough workshop space available at the time.
Cambridge & District Classic Car Club
Many years later, on my very first visit to CDCCC in February 2020 I had parked up for the club members meeting at the local Golf Club and to be honest I was a little uncomfortable not knowing anyone and not knowing where to go. I then noticed a couple park and get out of their car. Now it was dark and they didn't have any golf clubs so I deduced that they were probably not going to use the driving range. I approached them and asked if they were anything to do with the car club? Lo and behold they were! They introduced themselves, showed me in and even bought me a coffee (I'm on a health kick and abstaining from alcohol at the moment) and a very pleasant evening followed.
To get to the point I was sorting through some paperwork at the weekend and came across the card given to me at Wimpole Hall by accident, I noticed the name on it and thought it looked familiar and then the penny dropped.
The couple that had welcomed me to the Classic Car Club was the same couple I had met at Wimpole Hall all those years ago!
Thank You Fred and Christine Leach
Fred in his Finery
Drive carefully, arrive alive
David Preston