andytug (#9949),
So Lord Street has gone downmarket like all the rest ! I prefer to remember it in its heyday (interwar years). What elegance ! What style ! Did not Napoleon III model the Paris boulevards on it - or was it the other way round ? (ought to Google it - but prefer the legend).
A small boy remembers the wide pavements, the verandahs, the posh shops and all the women in their cloche hats and expensive furs......another world which will never return.
Now the Packard Merlin - any Merlin - note the "V-1650" (cu.in. swept volume). From that it put out 1,600 hp. My Wright Double Cyclone did the same - but from 2,600 Cu.in. (a 60% bigger engine !) "Horses for Courses", I suppose.
The Merlin powered both Hurricane and Spitfire in 1940. It was the engine which saved Britain then.
Danny.
PS: My "Starwriter" is back - fettled ! Now to (a) relearn how to use it (DG, have kept Manual) and (b) dig into pile of Floppy Discs (remember them ?) in which is a lot of material on my time in the VV. Most of it will be on Post here already, but you never know. D.