Cars to Stand By, to Perch on, to Drive and to Admire - Sepia Saturday

This week's theme from Sepia Saturday is a popular one  from the past.  Cue for me to show more proud owners  standing by their cars, or driving them or perching on them, or perhaps just photographing and admiring them - with some new images.    

 

 

A photograph of my elegant mother taken I suspect before my parents married in 1938.  

 

  

 

 My  Dad, John Weston (on the left)  with his first car, here with his brother Charles. I was delighted to get this photograph from my cousin,  as it  is one of the few photographs I have of my father prior to his marriage in 1938  to my mother, and means a lot to me.   John and Charles were close as  brothers and often went on motoring trips together. Here looking very suave in a smart casual style of the day.  c.1936 

 

Decades later and Dad with his latest car c.1960s.  

 

  

Brother with his pride and joy - pity whoever took the photo cut off the bonnet! 

 

 

  

The car daughter and I hired on our trip to New England in 1996 - my first visit there since I had spent a year working in Cambridge, Mass 1965-66.  This was in Falmouth, Cape Cod where we stayed in this wonderful cottage  and made a magical trip on a beautiful Autumn day sailing across to the island of Martha's Vineyard.

 

 Cars for business rather than leisure, in my home village of Earlston in the Scottish Borders. 

Andrew Taylor & Sons, Ironmonger & Grocer in Earlston,
  - listed in a Directory of 1931.  

 

A  rather rickety looking vehicle  belonging to the Donaldson family  butchers   in Earlston - no relation!  

 

 

From butcher to baker.  

 

 Driving a Car 

 

 

 

But I cannot resist in this blog sharing again my father's memory of his first car - and first drive,  told in his "Family Recollections " that he wrote down for me.  He was a commercial traveller  and in the 1930's got a new job with instructions to pick up a car at Derby and drive 90 miles north  to a new position in Blackpool, Lancashire 

"I had never driven a car before.  On Boxing Day, I went to the British School of Motoring and said I wanted some urgent lessons.  When I told the instructor I was driving to Blackpool the next day, he nearly had a fit.  I collected my car - a four door Morris saloon which I was expected to buy on hire  purchase at 18shillings per week.  It was a traumatic journey with me being  a complete novice, having had no proper tuition.  There was no heating, no radio of course to help pass the time, and the windscreen wipers kept seizing up.  I had also been told that the tyres were awful for punctures.  Still I made it, as darkness fell - just as well, as I wasn't too sure about the lights!"

 

Compulsory driving tests were introduced in the UK in June 1935.  

 

Cars to Perch On

 This photograph was dated 1968 - I am surprised that my father allowed someone to sit on the car. 

  

 

 

 

 

 This was my husband's first car  - a silver grey Ford Escort, bought just a few weeks before we first met in 1970. He was always proud of his cars and looked after them well.   This brings back memories of our engagement. It must have been love, that he actually suggested I sat on top of the car for this photograph - not something he has allowed since!  But he did spread out the tartan rug for me. For once I am quite in fashion with my mini skirt. 

 

Admiring Cars 

 

1889 and First Sight of a Car  in Earlston drew much attention in this report in the local paper.   

"MOTOR CAR - A motor car passed through the village on Sunday morning.  The two gentlemen who were driving it left Newcastle-on-Tyne the previous day en route for Edinburgh. In this neighbourhood one of the tyres got damaged  and it was resolved to put up at the Red Lion. 

This was done and the  car when it reached the hotel, being stopped for a little while was quickly surrounded  and examined with no small degree of curiosity, this being the first time  such a machine  has been seen  in operation here. "

Obviously a very newsworthy event!  

            Earlston High Street. in the early 1920s, with the Red Lion Hotel on the left.   

 

 

Below -  two cars on display at a recent vintage car rally in the Scottish Borders 

 

 

 

 

  Not forgetting  - to look after your car...........

 

Granddaughter helping her great uncle wash his car.  

 

 

With thanks to my local heritage  Auld Earlston for the Earlston photographs.  

 

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