The Editor

The ‘Indian summer’ mentioned in the last issue did not last long; from memory, four days. We then returned to rather dreary weather, with spells of wind and rain and flash floods in some places.

Parts of the UK hit 30 degrees C in September for the first time in four years. The record temperature for the month is 35.6 deg. C set in Bawtry, South Yorkshire, in 1906. Did they have global warming in 1906?

Bawtry is a market town and civil parish, sited where the western branch of the Roman Ermine Street crosses the River Idle in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England.

The town is home to Longstone Tyres. I’m a satisfied customer of Longstone’s having purchased five tyres and tubes for my TF1500. I found them to be good people to deal with. Here’s a ‘shot’ of the team:

I’ve included an advert for the company later in this issue in the ‘Bits and Pieces’ section.

The front cover of the last issue featured Paul Ireland’s two M.G.s which were parked in front of Valley Farm, Flatford in East Anglia. I asked Paul for some details and then promptly forgot to mention them……all down to anno domini!

Valley Farm, built in the mid-15th century, is a medieval Great Hall House that was home to wealthy yeoman farmers up to the 1900s. It was subsequently privately owned right up to 1935 until the then owner, Leonard Richardson, sold it to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings for £1,500. He sold it due to concern over the state of disrepair of the building. The Society undertook major repairs and restored the building to its near original state. The National Trust acquired the building in 1959 and in the early 1970s undertook a further programme of repairs.

The front cover of this issue shows the TD and YB belonging to Marek Rossmann from Hamburg. The TD is chassis number TD25045. Originally exported to North America, it was reimported back to the UK in 2009. Marek purchased the car from Junction 59 Classics in Darlington, County Durham but when he brought the car back to Germany, he experienced difficulty in getting the car on the road with the German Licensing Authorities. I won’t go into the ‘ins and outs’ of the problem, but suffice to say that a letter from me as DVLA representative of the MG Octagon Car Club sorted the matter out – one good reason of many why you should join the Octagon Car Club! (see advert later in this issue). Those of you who are members of the MG Owners Club will be familiar with the excellent articles by Malcolm Green which appear every month in their monthly magazine Enjoying MG.

Malcolm’s book The MG Story 1923-1980 has just been published and is sure to be a popular gift for M.G. aficionados. The cover price is £50, but you can buy it direct from the Publishers, Herridge & Sons, for £40, and what’s more, postage to a UK address is free. At the time of writing there are a number of signed copies available. Details from the Publisher’s website https://www.herridgeandsons.com/ Further information about the contents of this book can be found in the ‘Bits and Pieces’ section of this Issue.

To those of you who celebrate Christmas, I wish you glad tidings of comfort and joy and I wish all readers a Happy New Year. Let’s hope it is better than the one we are leaving behind! 

JOHN JAMES