Bird's Eye View By The Hawk
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Hailsham Humour
HOW about, incidentally, the delightful sally from Lord Hailsham at last week's Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders dinner: "I got my bull from Geoffrey Rootes." He did, too; the august viscount really did buy a prize bull from Mr. Rootes, the S.M.M.T. president. Ministers, I find, are quite humorous characters when let off the reins.
No Need
OR perhaps you prefer this one from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, Mr. John Hay, at a planning conference: "I have no time to go back to the Romans."
No need, Mr. Hay? Shame! The Romans knew a thing or two about building roads that could actually handle all the traffic offered. Walk around, there are still a lot of examples of their craft. The trouble is that 1960 demands have outstripped the traffic requirements that could be foreseen 2,000 years ago.
No Mixing—By Request
WHEN I was a very young Hawk—barely out of the nest, Y V in fact--I used to go swimming at the local public baths. Mostly it was all-male, sometimes all-female. Never mixed. thought things had progressed along a fairly emancipated path since then; if not in swimming baths, at least in public transport. Psst! I was wrong. In Catania, Sicily, they have banned mixed passenger loads. One Signora Vincenzina Coltraro complained (with obvious success) about the way she was pinched when travelling on a local bus route. The police and the bus company decided things had gone far enough. Democracy, yes. Emancipation, yes. But men n the same buses as the ladies? Never (and, what is more, a armed policeman travels on the bus to make sure).
lad Luck
TALKING of busmen, I felt so sorry. for the two Yorkshire I. bus drivers who recently failed to pass their driving tests n mo-peds after heaving double-deckers around for years.
It is sobering to contemplate the reverse picture, where a an can pass a test on a bubble car that is technically a mr-wheeler and then (in the eyes of Parliament) be fit to rive an eight-wheeler and trailer.
"op Brass
1E,EKING further information about the' new Simms petrol ) injection system at their stand during the Motor Show, I as advised to return later when a technical expert would be vailable to give a detailed account of it. On my return the :chnician 'produced was no other than Mr. G. E. Liardet,. imms managing director, who proceeded to give a very lucid :scription of this most promising equipment.
That is what I call service to the Press.
n Miniature
3ICKFORDS' pantechnicons now have plastics roller shutters , . at the rear, at least they do when they are miniaturized by esney Products, Ltd. This addition to. their excellent Matchox range arrived on my desk the other day along with a umber of other recent. models. These included a Tate and yle Foden-based sugar tanker, and a very detailed mode] of a early Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost tourer.
It now seems that no haulage fleet can be considered as orth its salt until its vehicles have been the subject of such. :aling-down. These models, I am told, are as eagerly sought y adult collectors as they are by children.