Welcome to Issue 48!
Spring made a brief appearance in the UK in mid-April with almost high-summer temperatures for a few days, but then retreated to serve up wet and windy weather with below average temperatures. It’s all to do with the Jet Stream, about which I know little – only that, if it is in a favourable position we get good weather.
As I pen this editorial I am hoping that the Jet Stream will be kind to us by the middle of May, because this is when we are travelling to Bakewell in Derbyshire to join the MG Octagon Car Club’s ‘Founder’s Weekend’. This weekend is held every May in memory of Harry Crutchley, who founded the MG Octagon Car Club. Harry started the Club with a small group of pre-1956 MG enthusiasts in the Stafford area and built it up into a worldwide organisation. He had the foresight to realise that the retailing of spare parts for members would be both an added draw for membership recruitment as well as a useful service to members in enabling them to keep their cars on the road.
Planning for the Tour of the Cotswolds continues apace and we have now got a design for the rally plates. It actually took some time to get permission to use the Cotswolds AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) logo, due to a change in personnel in the Cotswolds Conservation Board and it instilled in me the need to build in plenty of time for delays when putting these tours together.
It’s subscriptions renewal time for those who have opted to receive the printed copy of the magazine. Subscribers who are not on e-mail will find a renewal notice with this issue, but in a few cases where payment has been made already there won’t be one. For the others, renewals have been sent by e-mail and payments have been arriving on a daily basis. The subscription has been held at £15 (UK), but for EU and Rest of World, the subs have been reduced to £20 and £25 respectively.
In the previous issue, I published an aerial photo of a gathering of TFs, which was said to have been taken at a meet in Victoria, British Columbia. I incorrectly captioned this as a gathering of 50 TFs, but the number was actually 41. This prompted a couple of e-mails from Australia, which told me that the photo was actually taken at the Werribee Mansion in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and marked the 50th Anniversary of the TF.
My information which led to the publication of the aerial photo came from Canada, but the stated location by the person who e-mailed me was clearly incorrect. On reflection, I can see how the mix-up possibly occurred (two Victoria’s, albeit thousands of miles apart!) but I apologise both for getting the number wrong and more importantly, for getting the location wrong.
Again, in the previous issue, I said that I had written to the Head of Data Protection in DVLA about the Agency’s refusal to offer its previously advertised service of providing details of past owners. Having received a reply from somebody in what I would term the general correspondence section of the DVLA, I said that I would write to my Member of Parliament. I thought about this and came to the conclusion that as my MP is extremely busy right now in his role of “Chief Brexiteer” it would be unwise to trouble him. I therefore wrote again to the Head of Data Protection on the 11th April with the message that as I had initially written to him I would have expected to have received a reply from him.
The silence was deafening until I received a letter dated 1st May from the Senior Vehicle Data Protection Policy Manager telling me that my letter had only just reached his department. All very strange, because I have evidence that my letter of 11th April was received and signed for on 13th April!
I leave you with two rather splendid pictures of Paul Mellor’s TC0980. Paul has just completed a chassis up rebuild of the car to a very high standard. There is a picture of the interior later in this issue. Paul tells me that the car is going to be featured shortly in Classic and Sportscar.
JOHN JAMES
DISCLAIMER BY THE EDITOR
Totally T-Type 2is produced totally on a voluntary basis and is available on the website www.ttypes.org on a totally FREE basis. Its primary purpose is to help T-Type owners through articles of a technical nature and point them in the direction of recommended service and spares suppliers. Articles are published in good faith but I cannot accept responsibility or legal liability and in respect of contents, liability is expressly disclaimed.
