Bird's Eye View By The Hawk
Page 74
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Just Around the Corner
MY spies tell me to look out for a new version of a popular small oil engine. It is, they say, likely to have a new type of injection pump—probably a distributor pump. It is to be supplied to an important manufacturer for fitting in a 2-tonner. He apparently has special requirements in injection pumps.
Craftsmanship
WALKING round the Waterlooville works of Wadharn Bros., Ltd., with Mr. Bryan Heath, their young publicity executive, I was surprised to find what to me looked like a stage coach sandwiched between a Leyland Comet forward-control chassis and a Morris van. It was, I was told, a park drag, believed to haVe been owned previously by Mr. Bertram Mills and now the property of Sir Dymoke White, a big landowner in Hampshire and Norfolk. Wadhams were renovating it. The craftsmanship of the bodywork was a joy to behold and the doors shut at the touch of a finger with that satisfying click that has seldom been heard since mass production came in.
Debt of Honour
BUS operators are more accustomed to brickbats than bouquets, although Ribble Motor Services, Ltd., with their skilful public relations, suffer less than many. Mr. A. J. Wilson, district traffic superintendent of Fleetwood, ' was probably not surprised when Ald. H. Blackburn told him that he wished Ribble inspectors, conductors and conductresses to be represented at the ceremony at which the honorary freedom of Fleetwood was to be conferred on the alderman.
Ald. Blackburn explained that he wanted to recognize the help that the staff had given him during the past 25 years. He had depended on Ribble services for transport to and from his home to Fleetwood Town Hall, and without the assistance of the company's employees he could not have
• merited the honour to be conferred on him.
ClIr. S. E. Bond, a Ribble driver, seconded the resolution conferring the freedom of the borough on the alderman.
All His Own Work
ALL praise to Mr. H. Stocker, of Stanstead Abbotts, Herts, for having the courage to compete against the professional bodybuilder in the Brighton coach rally with his excellent "home-made" 14-seat coach. Although his vehicle did not win an award, I am prepared to wager that it aroused more interest with the public than any other entry. Incidentally, " do-it-yourself " appears to be the guiding frinciple of the Stocker family. This is the second coach body that Mr. Stocker has built, and he was also personally responsible for the bodywork on the two lorries he operates on his coal-delivery round. His diminutive wife, who drove the coach in the rally, is well known locally as "the coal lady." Most of her time is spent at the wheel of one of the lorries. Coach driving is a side line, as only private parties arc catered for. When they are not delivering coal . . or carrying private parties about the countryside . . or constructing coach or lorry bodies ... the Stockers may be found in their bungalow home—built, of course, by Mr. and Mrs. Stocker!
The Last Word
TW0 stories from St. Helens illustrate the lighter side of fare increases. One conductress, asked what the public's reaction was to the higher rates introduced early last month, said her first brush was "with a miner—of all people."
"He objected to paying -Id. extra, and asked me sarcastically how much I was in pocket," she said. "I fitted him up B40
nicely," she nodded with satisfaction. " I said: 'We're nowt in pocket mi lad, but we could de wi' summat extra to pay our coal bills.'" Another relates to a middle-aged man on a late bus who had been complaining bitterly about the increased fare and would not listen to one conductress's good-humoured reasoning. "Look," she said at last, "you've been courting 15 years to my knowledge; it's time you got married and then you'd have to live at one end or the other, and not be gallivanting backwards anyl forwards all the time, plaguing the life out of us with your wittering and nattering—so shut up and get married."
She had the last word!
Social Uplift
WHEN I was a boy, lawyers consulted their clients, doctors treated their patients and lesser mortals were pleased to deal with their customers. But there now seems to be something slightly discreditable about being a customer and clients are the order of the day. Even coach operators have them.
Those who remember the days when, as customers, they were always right, are sadly dated. Perhaps they will have greater success as clients—they are certainly paying through
the nose for their social uplift.
Mistaken Identity
MY colleague Alan Smith spends more time on his car with a grease gun than with a wash leather. Consequently, although he claims it is kept in first-class mechanical order, it does not always look in showroom condition. He arrived at a transport operator's garage one day with his car caked in mud and he parked it outside the manager's office.
When Smith was about to leave, he could not find his car. It was discovered in the washing bay. Two men, having cleaned it, were waxing the coachwork and brightening the chromium plating. The garage foreman, had seen the car and, believing it to belong to a member of the company, had taken steps to put it into a condition fit to represent the concern.
Smith was delighted—and took the hint,