Congratulations Geriaviator. Yours is the 5,000th post on this thread. We have a winner.
Apropos very little, a few pages back I posted a late 1960s photo of a younger Ken on a Velocette. In the background was a Rover P3, and this is my war story.
Coventry was a centre for machine tool manufacturing. At the outbreak of WWII there was competition amongst the local manufacturers for skilled tradesmen, so they set up the Coventry Toolroom Agreement. That meant pay and conditions were set collectively by a manufacturers alliance, and led to Coventry toolmakers being the best paid tradesmen in the country. The Rover P3 belonged to my brother's mate Malcolm. He was a precision grinder (all his children turned out the same size), a tradesman who could afford to support a wife and three children, pay a mortgage, run a P3 and race a Triumph Bonneville at weekends. That photo was taken at Cadwell Park.
We were the respectable working class. Men wore suits and ties to work, before changing into overalls. Saturday nights were family nights, spent in the beer hall. Everyone dressed up, men in suits, ladies in frocks. The Dud Clews Jazz Orchestra found it profitable to drive up from London to perform in Coventry. Malcolm used to smoke cigars.
It's 0-dark-0 here, time to go out and shovel snow. Goodnight all.
Last edited by Yamagata ken; 11th Jan 2014 at 20:28.