Today's County in the spotlight

[NewcastleFalcon]

Moving pictures from Epsom Surrey and the Derby in 1946. No I wasn't there, but I got told about probably the one and only horserace that my mother went to. The story is a little unclear how she ended up there but there is some Esher connection, and maybe a holiday to stay with her Uncle Jake/Aunt Molly who inexplicably had landed at Esher. Her cousin Beth married a GI and the whole of that wing of the family eventually moved to Tennessee.

I suspect they all had a day out at the 1946 Derby, and the grey horse Airborne winning was always told as part of the story.

Personal indulgence here, but I love these old films and their style for artistic merit alone in any case



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Vehicle Registration

The original code for Surrey was a single P

It expanded into PA to PL.

Plenty of scope to find an image of a Surrey numberplate on a suitable vehicle.
The very first one issued P1 is according to DVLA on a Red Rolls Royce


REgards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

A PC registration (no discrimination!):

BFTW

[bobins]

.....and where was the first purpose built car factory built in the UK ?

That motoring metropolis - Guildford. Dennis Brothers Limited began making cars in 1901 in a 30,000 sq foot building in the middle of Guildford. Although Dennis cars are a bit of a rare spot these days, most UK residents over the age of about 30 will have seen one of their dustcarts, fire engines, buses, or other specialist vehicles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Sp ... t_Vehicles

So many lovely old vehicles to choose from, so I shall only put up a few.


LP8389-1916-Dennis-B-type
MilborneOne, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons


1981 Dennis dustcart (8441808950) (cropped)
colin pidoux, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons


Dennis loline III grayshott
Weydonian at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons


And not forgetting - a Dennis mower


Dennis motor mower (29561541680)
Milton Keynes Museum from UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

[NewcastleFalcon]

A PC registration ....

Managed to find a 1956 AEC Reliance 200 APB bus.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I have just realised that I have met with a PL registration before. Way back in 1969 I bought my first car, a Reliant MK6 sidevalve engined 3 wheeler!! I paid the princely sum of £45 for it and then proceeded to paint it pale lilac with brushes!! Hmmm. I used it for a few months and during that time I parked outside my parent's bungalow when visiting them, which turned out to be very fortuitous. Their nextdoor neighbour moved out and the new man's name was Peter Lumpton. He was a successful solicitor and when he saw my car's registration was 205 PL he came and asked me if I was prepared to sell him the number. I jokingly said "Give me £200 and you can have the whole car!!" He smiled and said he had no use for the car but would happily pay £200 to get the number onto his Daimler.

The deal was done but it was slightly complicated due to the rules at the time. You were not allowed to transfer a plate unless you had owned the donor vehicle for 6 months, after which you could transfer it to a new vehicle belonging to the same owner. So we had to wait for about 5 weeks before it could be done and then the process to maintain legality was: I bought the 4 month old Daimler off Peter for 5 shillings but he kept the car locked in his garage while I completed the change of owner and then the transfer of my number. It took about 12 days in all at which point I literally took the plates off my Reliant and fitted it with the new number it had been issued and then registered the number to the Daimler and sold it back to Peter for £200 5s 0d. The 5s was important at the time!!

Some 20 years later just before I left BT I came across Peter in Croxley Green and I was amazed to see him driving an Aston Martin DB5 with my old registration on it. He was coming up to his own retirement and told me that the Aston was just his leisure car, he still had an XJ6 for daily use. What happened after that I do not know but on checking with the DVLA tonight I found the number is now on a white Mini Cooper which I am guessing is probably his son Paul's!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Wonder if my AEC Reliance post sewed that seed for recalling you Reliant Mick..... Nice story.

Another well known sporting occasion in which Surrey features, fed to the general public over many years by the BBC, and as a result gaining probably a pretty undeserved prominence is "The Boat Race",

The Fulham/Chiswick side of the course is known as the Middlesex station. The Putney/Barnes side of the course is known as the Surrey station, and hence the County in the spotlight once a year in the TV commentary on the event!

https://www.theboatrace.org/the-course

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Back in 1983 I did a weekend charity walk from Brighton to Watford. We drove down to Brighton on Friday morning and commenced our walk at lunchtime. We stayed overnight on friday in our camper van parked in a pub car park near Horsham and then carried on walking on Saturday morning. Our route to avoid the centre of London took us round to the west through Surrey and we elected Walton-on-Thames as our place to cross the river. we stayed overnight in Esher and then headed for the bridge on Sunday morning:

Old Walton Bridge

Recently I had cause to drive through Walton so I had a chance to check out our river crossing, sadly it is no more having been replaced by this:

New Walton Bridge

I'm not sure if that counts as an improvement or not?

[NewcastleFalcon]

This will bring my entries on Surrey to a close.

Bit of urban art entitled "Out of Order"

and a musical interlude with nothing to do with Surrey other than the aforementioned normally open carriage known as a "Surrey" was originally made in Surrey, although became very popular in the USA.



Regards Neil

[bobins]

Here's a bit of random heath.....


Horsell Common - geograph.org.uk - 166262
Andrew Smith / Horsell Common

...but if you look closely, you'll see it's where these landed....

[mickthemaverick]

We've given Surrey a fair crack of the whip so I think it's time to say:

____________Surrey done!_____40 done 52 to go________

There are 92 historic counties in England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland, each is having a mere day-ish in the spotlight selected at random.

Our 39 numbers selected so far have been
2,3,4,5,7,8,9,11,12,13,15,16,18,22,24,28,31,34,44,48,51,52,54,59,61,65,66,68,69,70,72,73,75,78,79,81,82,84,86,89

______________________________________________________________________

Here's the pool

Spoiler: show

Here's the random tool https://www.random.org/

Random Number is 20
County is Cheshire

Time for our North Western members to post up some tales!

[mickthemaverick]

Cheshire's flag is bright:

BFTW

Information here

and the location:

BFTW

The places to talk about:

BFTW

[Paul-R]

That's post 1974(?) Cheshire. Prior to that Wirral was part of Cheshire. And Widnes and Warrington were still part of Lancashire. Nowadays Cheshire is split into two administrative areas: East Cheshire and Cheshire West & Chester.

[NewcastleFalcon]

That's post 1974(?) Cheshire. Prior to that Wirral was part of Cheshire. And Widnes and Warrington were still part of Lancashire. Nowadays Cheshire is split into two administrative areas: East Cheshire and Cheshire West & Chester.

We are dealing in the Historic County of Cheshire Paul for the purposes of the thread, different from its current boundaries.

This is the reference referring to all 92 historic Counties we are covering.
https://wikishire.co.uk/wiki/Cheshire

The map and list of settlements includes the Wirral



List of towns and settlements covered
https://wikishire.co.uk/wiki/Cheshire#T ... d_villages

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I have only been to Cheshire a few times, the last of which was during our September Stroll documented here!!
Prior to that I visited a law partnership's offices in Macclesfield

BFTW

to thrash out a car supply deal for the partners. The deal proved to be lucrative for me over the next couple of years supplying an average of 2 cars a month to partners around the country. If I remember correctly they had 90+ partners which yielded an average swap of car once every 14 days given that the cars were run for 3 years before swapping.

I was able to source all the replacement vehicles as well as dispose of the old vehicle each time. That made delivery very simple as all I had to do was source the new vehicle to the partner's specification, drive it to his home or office and return in his old vehicle for me to sell at a profit. Nearly all the partners wanted to appear "good" so the returned cars were invariably valeted and fuelled before I arrived. A very profitable contract for me!! It only came to an end when a new senior partner was appointed and his brother was the Dealer Principle at a branch of Curry Motors. Needless to say the business all went his way!!