Engine Punk

I haven't competed in motorsport for a while and haven't marshalled for even longer. When I heard about this trial, I volunteered to marshal. It's always good to help out and it was a chance to look at some interesting machinery and see how some very successful drivers approach some tricky sections. I soon discovered that a lot of those involved were people I knew so it was a highly social event,too. Clerk of the Course was none other than Adrian Booth and I found myself marshalling with a few other local trialling "names". The 24th Launceston Trial was held in Lew Wood, an extensive and - in parts - extremely steep pine plantation between Lydford Gorge and Lew Down and was run by the Launceston & North Cornwall Motor Club. Some of the sections feature in the Tamar Trial so it was a good opportunity to practice The format was slightly different from the classic trials that I was used to, in that sections were marked out by numbered poles. If an entran...

No, I don't mean having trouble with reading - I'm having trouble finding good stuff to read. I want books that absorb me into their world completely. I want to feel that nothing else matters except the story I'm reading. I want to find books (just one would do for a start) that make me feel that I don't want to do anything else but revel in their story. But the more I look, the more difficult it becomes to get this feeling. I want the outside world to stop. I want the only thing that matters to be between the pages of a book. And I want to stretch out on my leather settee (it could do with being a bit longer actually because I'm 1.85 metres or 6'1" in old money) and read beside my open fire during these cold dark nights. How is it that with so many books being published these days, so little interests me? I went to the library today and nothing appealed. In these circumstances, how can I realistically expect to go into a bricks and mortar b...

Imps by name and Imps by nature, these small cars look so mischievous If we had a republic in Britain the Hillman Imp might have had a better start in life. Its launch was rushed so that Prince Philip could visit production under way at the new showcase factory at Linwood in Scotland. It wasn't really his Royal Highness' fault that the Imp was not adequately developed. In fact, if we'd been a republic and suits at Rootes would probably have got the President of Britain in on the same date. As it was, the Imps soon developed a poor reputation for fertility and unreliability. I can remember, as a car mad tax of about six or seven, being shown in him by my father at our local garage. This was Solway’s, now the Town & Country Nissan dealer at Marazanvose on the A30. "That," he told me, "is the worst car ever made." He'd just been talking to the mechanics of getting our Anglia serviced. Roll forward to the summer of 1981. I’d had my drivin...

I first came across Edgar Allen Poe when I read a legendary treatise on steam locomotive history. The Chronicles of Boulton's Siding by Arthur Rosling Bennett - er - chronicles the fascinating and mysterious locomotives that Isaac Boulton bought, rebuilt, sold, sometimes bought back, rebuilt again and often finally sold as winding engines to collieries. Many of them had illustrious careers before they appeared at Boulton's siding in Ashton-under-Lyme but once Boulton had converted them for industrial use only someone with an infectious enthusiasm and deep knowledge of his subject could hope to piece their stories together. Rosling Bennett was that man. Many stories remain incomplete despite Bennett's best efforts but this book is the start of many enquiries into ancient locomotive lore. Despite the murky origins of some of these locomotives I especially liked the line drawings that illustrated them in the condition when Boulton owned them. Boulton even bu...

The issue of car parking at the station made the front page of the Cornish Guardian last week and it was clear that the town councillors are unhappy about First Great Western's decision to introduce fees. Local residents who use the train were expressing concern that when the charges are introduced their driveways will be blocked in so even non-car commuters will be affected. There was a lot of huffing and puffing on the train and not because it's got a steam engine. To be honest, though, there is a great strength of feeling. It makes so much less sense for people to use the train now a lot of people I've spoken to will probably drive, especially if, like me, they have to drive into Liskeard to catch the train. FGW claimed they were charging in answer to rail user's requests. Nobody knows who these people were. They've probably stopped using the train out of personal safety, if they ever existed. I wrote to my MP, Colin Breed, and he replied to say that...

The other day I took my silver haired rellies out to St Ervan church. This little-known church in Cornwall was mentioned in a guide book on churches that one of them received for Christmas and the description was so interesting it even tempted a heathen like me to go and have a look. St Ervan lost its tower many years ago and the stump remained a stump until given a proper job roof as late as the 1950s. For many years an improvised tripod of tree trunks supported a bell in the churchyard and this was how a youthful John Betjeman found the church whilst on holiday in Cornwall. Betjeman visited Cornwall from an early age and is buried at St Enodoc. He championed Victorian architecture and Britain's railways when they were most under threat and had a knack of making the most mundane things appear special. But St Ervan was something exceptional, a strange place in a strange land. Betjeman found St Ervan when he was still quite a young chap and by chance - always the bes...

Continuing the occasional theme of Hillman Imp off-road thingies, this device is probably the ultimate. The Gillie was designed around 1970 by the Rootes group and endowed with hub reduction gearing and a shorter wheelbase. This combination gave it exceptional off road performance but made it a bit slow on the road. It also hadn't been consciously styled by the Rootes Group stylists so had a kind of honest-to-goodness lack or pretension. This photo is from a newspaper article supplied by Gary Henderson via Franka's excellent site. You can read more about the genesis of the Gillie here. The Gillie never went into production and remained unique. After a brief period on Lord Rootes' country estate, the one-and-only Gillie fell into obscurity. There were tantalising gl imp ses of it by Imp aficionados from time to time but it led a secret existence unrecognised for many years until recently, when it turned up - like so many things - on Ebay. And by now you'd never beli...