Memories of Mini

Can there be a more quintessential expression of ‘Britishness’ than the humble Mini?

Despite the fact that the modern variant of the marque is firmly in the hands of BMW the original remains, at its heart, the very essence of our fair isles.  Perfect in design, small but plucky, innovative yet in some ways flawed, discrete and flashy at the same time.  

Conceived in response to rising oil prices after the Suez crisis it was, with the memories of World War Two still fresh, an example of where the British come into their own: solving problems in the face of adversity.  I wonder, when it's designer Alex Issigonis put pen to paper in the late fifties, he envisaged the world of today where a gallon of petrol is over six pounds and would he have bothered at all.  

But bother he did and his deceptively roomy, transverse-engined, masterpiece was born. Soon the Mini became one of the true British icons of the sixties; owned and loved equally by maharajahs, groovy celebrities and the humble man on the street. Just over a decade after its 1959 launch the marvellous Mini entered my life.

                        

I have mainly happy memories of our family’s first Mini. It was a basic British Leyland 850cc model in dark blue delivered as new in 1972.  It had been supplied to my disabled Mum by the UK government to help her, as a single parent, to be mobile having two small kids to lug around and all.  Before arrival it had been adapted to enable it to be driven with just the hands and what a challenge that proved to be. As a manual car it needed some pragmatic and ingenious additions. 

The observant would see it had two quarter moon controls just underneath the steering wheel. The bottom lever operated the clutch (assisted by a huge servo retro-fitted in the engine compartment), the top regulated the gas and it required much subtlety and skill with the practised fingers of the right hand to balance them to avoid stalling when setting off. This proved to be particularly tricky on hill starts.  To the left of the driver, next to the gear stick, was a hand operated brake; an austere lever topped with a white knob connected directly to the brake pedal by a primitive linkage. On top of all this, things like gear changes, handbrake operation and steering were obviously also required. I don’t know how she managed to drive it. I’m fairly sure, looking back, she doesn’t either.

Once the driving test had been passed, it heralded the start of convenient travel but also some pretty hair-raising journeys.  I could mention a few:  Like the time it took us over 10 hours to get to Butlins in Skegness as navigation was just one process too many above all the other tasks the adapted Mini demanded of Mother.  

Or the time in torrential rain on the motorway when we were suddenly surrounded by lorries and the spray they created overwhelmed the puny wipers. Panicking, she nearly lost the plot and I had to calmly talk her out of just stopping dead in the central lane and letting fate take its course.  I’m lucky to be alive thinking about it.

That first Mini lasted about six years. Towards the end of its life it had fallen foul of the classic Mini maladies.  Rust was eating away at the inner wings with damp foot wells and spongy sills being the inevitable outcome. It especially didn’t like starting on cold mornings necessitating comedic push-starts begged from passing strangers aided by two exasperated kids.  Finally, when the heavily ridden clutch went, so did the car.  

Soon after it was replaced with teal blue Mini: same set up as the first and eventually the same issues. By then we’d learned a clever trick of jump-starting it in reverse gear which was much more effective – most of the time.

What I particularly remember was the huge load carrying capacity they had.  Fully packed they could take four or five compact people plus other stuff such as drums, guitars and amplifiers. Indeed, it was used as our alternative to a Ford Transit to transport me and my fellow band members to rehearsal rooms and gigs when we were budding rock stars. I doubt we’d get away with such excesses these days but, again, it’s testament to Mr Issigonis’ clever design that there was plenty of Tardis-like space with many nooks and crannies to cram full. Amazing really for such an outwardly compact creation.

Three more Minis followed. My Mum got a red automatic which made the hand controls simpler and it was mainly trouble-free in the time we had it. By this time I was a driver, having learned my basic driving chops in our Mini, and was enjoying the experience for myself. By the end of our Mini ownership I’d driven the automatic, my sister’s turd-brown example and finally my very own oxidised red Mini 1000. 

Thinking back I loved the dodgem-like road holding and handling. The ability to turn a full ninety degrees from a standing stop. The wooden feel to the brakes (that did tend to fade a bit when under heavy load) but, most of all, the way you could barge around; nipping in and out of traffic with gazelle-like ease and park just about anywhere you wanted.  Today, if I had unlimited funds, I’d have one like a shot.  

So, even though they may not be the safest of cars, the most long lived or particularly well-equipped I can assure you if you’ve never had the experience of a Mini in your life (however briefly) it’s possible you may not have lived at all.  

                                                             Copyright Anthony Boe 2015.  All Rights Reserved

Our William

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged mainly due to a packed and bleary Christmas so a belated Happy New Year to everyone!  Traditionally New Year is all about new beginnings: pledges and resolutions we might make to ourselves and immediately fail to deliver. Oh well, there’s always Chinese New Year so don’t fret.

So I thought in this blog I’d write about some new beginnings from almost a century ago which culminated in something all car enthusiasts will recognise. You see, every now and again you hear some information that leaves you, as the UK vernacular goes: 'gobsmacked!' It doesn’t often happen to me and that’s not to claim I know everything by the way, I’m simply more blasé than most I suspect. However, when I recently discovered that Woodsmoor in Stockport (in northern England) was ground zero for Jaguar cars you could have slapped my face and called me Susan in the time it took for that info’ to register. Talk about confused! Questions revolved around my head: Woodsmoor? In Stockport? The Jaguar cars? Here? Where I live? Are you sure? Really? What? How? Errrrhm? And it’s true – who would have thought it?

The narrative goes that William Walmsley, the son of a wealthy Stockport coal merchant, returned from serving in World War 1 and started to make motorcycle sidecars in his shed in Woodsmoor. And what creations they were; so beautiful, so elegant; they sold like the proverbial ‘hot cakes’. He called them Swallow Sidecars, also known as ‘Stockport Zeppelins’, due to their dirigible airship-like structure. Soon Walmsley had to move to a bigger unit in Stockport to scale up production to meet the ever-growing demand.

It was when William’s family moved to Blackpool on the Fylde coast that the story really moves on. Enter one William Lyons. He was younger than Walmsley and much more entrepreneurial. He spotted the commercial potential of William’s creations and formed a partnership with him. Soon they built up the sidecar business and diversified into building bespoke coach-works for established manufacturers, that included the Standard Swallow.

As the business progressed, it eventually moved to Coventry to be nearer the epicentre of British car manufacturing. During this journey, the Stockport storyline starts to lose its grip.
In 1935 Walmsley, a somewhat reluctant businessman chose to dissolve the partnership. He sold his shares, moved back to Blackpool and quietly removed himself from automotive history. Choosing instead to start a small company designing caravans and trailers. Lyons, on the other hand, pounced and went on to form Jaguar cars. Eventually, he gained a knighthood for creating an international prestige car brand.

Over the years Walmsley’s contribution was gently edged out of Jaguar’s official canon giving most the impression that Blackpool, Lyon’s birthplace, is where Jaguar had its genesis. We know better now don’t we and perhaps you’re as surprised as I was?

My Dad owned a Mark 2 Jag that he upgraded to a Mark 10 Jag in the early seventies. It was a huge whale of a thing, I don’t know how he drove it. My father-in-law had a white XJS in the eighties which I’m pretty sure is now a pile of rust. Fictional detective Inspector Morse famously drives a cranky old Mark 2. Enzo Ferrari described the E-Type Jag as one of the prettiest cars ever made. All of this would have been impossible if it wasn’t for the efforts of a bored ex-serviceman living and working in the post-industrial northern mill town I call home.

How can we know how many Jags in the intervening decades have cruised down the M60 motorway under the magnificent Stockport viaduct? How many Big Cats have been parked in Woodsmoor the owners ignorant of the historical thread that extends from years earlier, snaking through the borough, from the old century into the new, coiling ever tighter until coalescing into the high-end motor they will fret over as they leave it at the kerbside.

History is a beguiling thing. It’s the collective story of how tragedy, ambition, accident, stupidity and serendipity collude to instigate the events that form the future. And in this process, alongside orthodox history, as we know it, if one cares to look, there are also parallel stories of small beginnings, unsung heroes and also-rans: the victims of bad luck or misplaced credit. Walmsley's story just happens to be closer to home than most and to me, here in Stockport, is definitely that bit more interesting.

As a coda to all this, apparently, there are moves to get a commemorative blue plaque mounted on the house in Woodsmoor where the Jaguar story began. It can't be too soon to my mind. And, just around the corner from the former site of William’s humble shed, some new houses have been built one of which is known as Walmsley Cottage. It’s not much to mark William Walmsley’s considerable and local contribution to our classic car world but perhaps, given his low-key nature, it’s just enough.

                                                                                Copyright Anthony Boe 2015.  All Rights Reserved