I went up to Matlock yesterday and did a tour of inspection. The completed body tub is standing to attention on it’s rear panel in a corner of the workshop and the rolling chassis is being wheeled in and out to make way for real work. Hopefully, before Christmas, we shall formulate a second list of parts for me to collect, no, buy, from Jeeparts UK. It will include a new engine. Gulp! Meanwhile I found this lovely picture of my Aunt Rosemary taken, probably, at the end of the war. She was a bit of a James Bond in her day and talks little of what she actually did in the war to this day. It was all a secret. However, she has clearly wooed a couple of chaps to change a wheel here, whilst her and an officer watch on. I shall email her and ask if she can remember any other details. She would not, for one moment, have been interested in the Jeeps, or the fact that the one at the front has a trailer in tow, but you never know, she may just say that the officer lives down the road and still has the Jeep covered in dust in his shed.
4 comments:
I simply love this photograph. It's loaded with interest, intrigue and implication, to use just three words from the 'i' section of my dictionary. It's like a still from a forties film adapted from an Evelyn Waugh novel.
Your aunt looks quite fit too.
Well, of course, it was the forties. The real forties, not a film set, or otherwise. Pre Women's lib and all that. A flutter of petty coat and any bloke worth his wrench would change a wheel for a gal.
Our Aunt is still very fit young Ashley; fit enough to box your ears for impertinence, to add one more 'i'.
Possessed of a fine problem-solving mind, Aunt 'Tee' Paw, as we know her, was responsible for the largely un-reported 'Leatherhead Airlift' of 1946. Coming, as it did, so soon after the cessation of hostilities this extraordinary logistical feat remains an overlooked footnote in the annals of post-war endeavour. Correctly anticipating a surge of interest in, of all things, golf she commandeered a serviceable DC3 and requisitioned every available set of army surplus golfing irons she could lay her hands on. Using the charms so clearly visible in the photograph she then persuaded a crack team of newly-redundant Czech airmen to fly her, day and night, from The Leatherhead and Oxshott Bowling Society green (which was more like a meadow) dropping perfectly usable sets of golf clubs at as many Home Counties Golf Clubs as she could. You may well imagine the impact this had on morale for our brave fighting men, back from the horrors of war. Montgomery himself said: 'It is hard overstate the contribution this young WAAF, Harrison, has made to the golf clubs of our great nation. Without her efforts thousands of brave men and women would have been forced to go several summers without a round of golf. After thrashing the Hun all many of us looked forward to was whacking a golf ball very, very hard, it was what kept us going. Very well done to you young lady.' Of course, he called it 'Gorf' but that's beside the point.
So Peter, there you have it. A brave warrior, a fine women, a great Aunt.
Quite right too! Thanks for setting the family's reputation right.
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