XH558

[Brooksy]

Here is the best vintage plane ever made.... Gordon will appreciate this...

http://www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=34735

Very good. Wooden frame?

[Gixxerboy]

Depends where it was and whether public safety at risk if it had broken up. Personally I don't think any of these old planes should be flying, they should all be grounded. All this wallowing in slushy sentimentality for a war we never really won is holding this country back. Same goes for vintage and veteran cars etc. Getting beyond a joke all this clinging on to the past. Sweep it all away - and the National Trust and English Heritage.

Wartime Weekend Pickering - the town full of pseudo military types in the main who as my Dad said would mess themselves if they saw real action - until you've seen a King Tiger smash through a house and cut off your escape, until you've fired 25 pdrs on open sights totally ineffectually etc etc. Wearing medals they never earned, strutting round in uniforms they're not fit to grace.

What a complete load of bull shiite. Do you really believe that or do you just post shiite like that to get a reaction??

[Katzenjammer]

to try to get some discussion and life flowing back into this once active forum mate Finally worked?

[Brooksy]

Certainly did you miserable beggar.

[Katzenjammer]

Aye but it didn't really though did it?

Joking apart I was going through in my mind today the number of heritage preservation things I've been involved in. The main public one must be being a member of the Pickering Railway Preservation group. This was later overtaken and subsumed and outwitted by what is now the North Yorkshire Railway Preservation Society. As our small group we raised enough money to purchase two narrow gauge locos and trucks from a quarry together with track and we were negotiating with BR to install this between the broad gauge tracks from Pickering Station to Newbridge. Quite a feat for a group of teenagers with a couple of adults?

I've also been involved in preserving motorbikes - a Vincent Black Shadow and a Royal Enfield, the restoration of a Willys jeep. Helping a guy place his unique glider in a museum. Archaeological digs - no wonder my knees are bad and some dry stone walling - back breaking stuff

[Brooksy]

Well done Steve. The Vincent Black Shadow was years ahead of it's time, as was the Ariel Square Four and the Norton Commando.
I use to work with a guy that had a lot to do with Pickering, Grosmont and the NYR, Russ Piggott, have you met him?
Currently I'm Lead Driver Manager for London Midland at Crewe, no steamers, just Siemens electrics running at 110 mph all day, it more than pays the bills.

[Raj]

Hear.....Hear!
I grew up riding a Royal Enfield 350 since I was 13. .... Illegaly of course. ... and my 6 years of working life in India was for a jeep manufacturing company that bought the design from Kaiser Willys in 1942 ... Now Google that for images
Nostalgia is indeed not what it used to be

[Brooksy]

Was that Mahindra Raj? Interesting you grew up in India, which bit? I've only been to Goa, Kerela, Udupi, Delhi, Mumbai, Agra and Jaipur. The usual tourist bits but I love the country, I will be back again in January.

[Katzenjammer]

I use to work with a guy that had a lot to do with Pickering, Grosmont and the NYR, Russ Piggott, have you met him?Currently I'm Lead Driver Manager for London Midland at Crewe, no steamers, just Siemens electrics running at 110 mph all day, it more than pays the bills.

Hmmm that name is vaguely familiar I have to say. Many of us were huffed off after the bigger player(s) sidelined us and we went off in a bit of teenage angst. Roy Scurrah I seem to remember more from the Pickering end. Have you ever come across a chap called John Holwell on the rail system. Be in his sixties now.

[Raj]

Was that Mahindra Raj? Interesting you grew up in India, which bit? I've only been to Goa, Kerela, Udupi, Delhi, Mumbai, Agra and Jaipur. The usual tourist bits but I love the country, I will be back again in January.

Mahindra & Mahindra it was. When his father died leaving my grandma with 13 mouths to feed, my dad left his little village in Kerala and joined M&M Ltd as 'stenographer' and PA to the erstwhile Mr.B.R Sule when he was just 17 years old. He retired as their Overseas Operations Director at the age of 60. I joined them as an apprentice in their Tool Design department in Bombay and then spent the last 6 years of my life in India at their Igatpuri Engine Plant in Product and Tool Design.

Geetha and I had our honeymoon in Goa in 1991