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TO PARIS IN TEN DAYS.

21st October 1919
Page 9
Page 9, 21st October 1919 — TO PARIS IN TEN DAYS.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

By One of the Leyland Crew.

REAOHING THE SALON this year has been a very different task compared with pre-war days for those of us who remember the very . pleasant jaunts tsf this kind 'which were part and parcel of the former Paris Shows. We were fortunate enough to meet the Editor at the Grand Palais, and. he expressed his sympathy and amusement so plainly combined that it was with.ple@sure I agreed to write a few notes of our experiences en route.

Thinking to be specially well away with our exhibit —a custom that is notuisiversally recognized by manufacturers, either here or in France, our 'Chorley factory, at our request, put special efforts forward and turned out a very excellent job in very excellent time. The fire-engine complete was ready on board steamer at an East Coast port ten days before she was due in Paris.

But the !hest laid plans of Publicity Departments oft do not take into account such minor eventualities as railway strikes, to say nothing of the apresla-guerre attitude of the average French Customs officials. For nearly ten days our gallant pompe-a.incendiesrest4c1 serenely on the deck of the good ship "Margaret," tied to the quay of an East Coast port and, forbidden coal at the behest of the men who tried to paralyse the country transport, but who were prevented from doing so by the products of our own.

great industry.

We ourselves were pefsiMally in almost as bad plight as our engine. Nearly the last train from the North fetched us as far as London, and then we had • to take nOt-luek on a lorry to Folkestone, including in our personal baggage a hefty case of exhibition material, which in the ,end somehow passed muster as personal belongings arid escaped the kind attentions of the lynss-eyed Douane officials. Packed like sardines—most of . them very, very ill--on the only Cross-Channel boat, we reached Boulogne with no knowledge of the -whereabouts of."the s.s. " Margaret." After two days vibrating between the W.A.A.C.-haunted Casino and the telegraph office, we were told the machine would probably go to Havre, and certainly not to Boulogne. Telegrams to England weretaking two or thre days and letters were fruitless. Our mechanic had disappeared altogether for the time being, having travelled by a very round-about route, -but he was discovered in Banlos-ne before he had come to much harm.

Boulogne to Havre direct was impossible, so this decided us , that Paris must ho our next move, although l-we seemed to he putting ourselves further away from posts andtelegraphs. Some days later we learned by telephone that. our boat might arrive at Havre during the next day or so. So off we went to Havre—once more in the land of W.A.A.C.s and similar evidences of the British zone of operations. By almost a miracle on the day the Salon opened in Paris, the s.s. "Margaret," having secured a few hundredweights of coal, drew into Havre docks in the early morning, and by Son'tething rather more than a miracle the big floatingcrane came alongside in a few hours and, lifting the Leyland high from the " Margaret's" decks, took it en plein air for a tour round the -docks, finally depositing it on a swing bridge in convenient proximity to the Customs Office. Things then looked a little brighter,, and, after long arguments with the Douane officials: to prove that we could not weigh the canvass assclOthe rubber of rubber-lined hose separatelsd that. mechanics'tools were not spare parts, we set out at top speed, for Rouen and Paris by road, feeling just a shade nervous as to how the brown fluid serving as petrol would behave. It did not behave for a few miles, but after we had properly warmed up, the fluid, which inquiry proved to be the stuff the French used for flame projection, stood us in goad stead.

A brief stay at Rouen, to report to the 4th Heavy Repair Shop, M.T., RsA.S.C., and a further hustle to Paris, with 'but' small consideration, I fear, for octrois and other hindrances to expedition on French highways.

Early the following morning we burst across the Place de l'Etoile and down the Champs Elysees to the amazement of gendarmes and stray ponapiers alike, and after -a pause to discover the joint how and why of •a run-down accumulator and an empty petrol tank, we reached the great side doors of the Salon a few minutes late for entrY that day. Thanks to the courteous sympathy of the Director General, we were accorded the exceptional privilege, if we drained all petrol out, of ehtry after the .mob had been admitted to the building. There was an attendance of 90,000 that day, arid it ;seemed to us that all but a few dozen of them spent the morning Watching the efforts of ourselves and of a British officer who could not help helping to persuade nearly fl-rd tons of fire-engine to climb some feet up on to a stand without ramps and proper timbers. At midday our efforts were availing we .,engaged the bottom gear and three of us ;tuned the starting handle to such effect—not counting the somewhat timid assistance of the few attendants who had not disappeared for lunch directly there was some Work to do—that we wound her into position.. At midday on the third day of the Show the race ended, so that, despite all our troubles, we were able to represent the British commercial vehicle industry at thu 15th French Exposition d'Automobiles—the only British-built heavy vehicle there sofar as I could discover. When we had done we certainly looked as well as anything else there, and I think we felt as well, in spite of the cold douche applied by a sergent des poinpiers, who much' objected to the waste of time implied by the amount of brass fitting which is part and' parcel of our British firaengines. But I have begun since to suspect that it was not the brass he objected to so much as the British elbow grease for which it asked A.W.W.

Tags

Organisations: Customs Office
Locations: Rouen, PARIS, London

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