TEACHING AT BIRMINGHAM MUSEUMS & ART GALLERY, PART ONE: LOCAL HISTORY & ROMANS...

 The Schools Liaison Department, 

Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Starting as a teacher at the Museum & the 'boss', Jean Evans...

I guess it was tough to know what lay ahead of me at the MAG in 1984, for I had joined a very unusual and newly formed team of women whose forenames all began with J. The department was managed by an ex-policewoman called Jean Evans, who had insisted that the team’s secretary Jean Edwards should be known by her middle name of Lillian, whilst Museum curator Jane Duffield was part of the original schools service and dealt with Natural History (basically dinosaurs) and also worked with groups of schoolchildren at the Nature Centre.

The other teacher was Joan Baker, a character I rarely saw at all, for she ensconced herself in a massive costume storeroom, almost certainly cataloguing it but rarely using the collection for teaching purposes. Before she left, she presented the Museum with a couple of scale models of Birmingham trams which her father had constructed. They were fabulous…

Jean Evans was married to a police inspector who was a high ranking fellow in the area of police sports, so that he always received gratuitous FA Cup Final tickets, etc. On one occasion Jean gloated to me (for that was often her manner) that she was off to the Cup Final that week-end. She knew I was a football follower and it seemed a little cruel to boast about her trip to me. On the following Monday, she dropped her complimentary match programme on my desk as she walked silently past it en route to her office. Thanks for that…

Jean had apparently met her future spouse whilst in the force and within a short space of time had disengaged him from his fiancee and had hooked him in for herself. She had then changed to a brief teaching career at Four Dwellings Primary School, before realising that perhaps the graft wasn’t for her and somehow, through whatever channels were available to her, she had ended up as the manager of the fledgling SLD. I don’t remember her doing any teaching at all though but I think she once had to show some costume to a group of secondary girl pupils and I witnessed how strained and poor her teaching skills were…

She was harsh, serious and no kind of pleasure at all to work for and her office was positioned rather strangely, causing a real problem should one need to reach the kettle and make oneself a mug of coffee…

BEFORE JEAN EVANS' RETIREMENT & AFTER NEW TEACHERS HAD BEEN APPOINTED.
LEFT TO RIGHT: TRISH PEATE (ART), AILYSE HANCOCK (ASTON HALL), ROSEMARY DEWAR (NATURE CENTRE, LATER SPRINGFIELD HOUSE IN KNOWLE), JAN PICK (BLAKESLEY HALL), JEAN EVANS, ELFYN MORRIS (SCIENCE MUSEUM, THEN SAREHOLE MILL), JAN ANDERSON (NATURE CENTRE, SCIENCE MUSEUM, THEN HEAD OF SCHOOLS LIAISON)& FINALLY ME... 

Incredibly, one day, I knocked Jean's door for access to the kettle and her phone rang, which she answered with her usual abruptness and her customary frown but as I walked past her, she fawned and smiled and was instantly in a loving, gentle, soppy conversation with her husband… Somehow I managed to avoid laughing out loud… 

She was always really flirty with the security supervisors though, in order to get something she wanted for the department and that was sickening to witness, especially as we in the department were treated very harshly.

The SLD offices...

The office space was at the very end of what used to be the Natural History galleries on the top floor of the MAG, which would eventually become the Light On Science gallery following a flood (more about that later…) When Millennium Point was completed, Light On Science disappeared from the building and a Birmingham History display was introduced after I had retired.

The office area was shaped like a right-angle, the shorter end containing schools’ loans items on sets of metal shelves. At that time, a teacher could book and collect items free from the MAG, like stuffed foxes in huge blue boxes, fossils, costumes, even ancient Egyptian artefacts and a host of other delights. The loans were due back two weeks later but as time went on, the rules and conditions tightened up considerably.

The longer arm of the right-angle was a run of offices and upon entering the main door, ‘Lillian’, or Jean Edwards sat at her desk to take phone messages, arrange schools' visits, book out loans and type out worksheets and information for teachers. Jean would then post out one sample worksheet and one set of teachers’ notes to booked schools. 

Her best moment ever was when she had typed out the lyrics to WW2 songs for a WW2 loan box and a teacher had pinned a photocopy of one to his classroom wall, only to find the best typo ever in the chorus of Arthur Askey’s ‘Kiss Me Goodnight Sergeant Major’. 

It should have read:

‘Kiss me goodnight Sergeant Major

Tuck me in my little wooden bed’

However, Jean had typed an F instead of a T for ‘Tuck’… 

The loan had been out a number of times before she received the now famous phonecall from the teacher concerned and a hasty correction was made on her typewriter…

In truth though, perhaps the soldiers themselves might have played around with those words too… 

I shared her room and had my own phone but through the next door was what would later become Elfyn Morris’ room, who was selected in an interview process by Jean Evans, despite the fact that I was told that his trousers split on the day and he had to be attended to… (Elfyn doesn't recall this...) 

Jane Duffield sat in the next room, which led through another door into Jean Evans’ space. That was on the ninety degree dog-leg left turn into the tea & coffee making area and thus into the  loans collection.

I seem to recall Elfyn keeping stinky pilchards in the fridge for a short time, due to an abdominal pain he was struggling with. The smell was not acceptable to some members of staff, although I thought it was hilarious… (Elfyn doesn't remember this either!)

During my initial months in the SLD department, I was introduced to a clocking-in and out system to build up flex-time, which satisfied the whims of the Museum staff, although eventually it turned out that our carefully stamped cards actually went nowhere but inside our later leader’s locked desk drawer. It was a sham to appease the council…

Teaching Local History...

I was soon booked to teach Friday afternoon groups of boys from King Edward’s High School’s Year 7 in the Local History galleries near the Great Charles Street entrance and then I began to cover and finally take over from Jane Duffield in the Natural History galleries. When she sadly miscarried her child, I covered a special set of Minibeasts sessions at the Nature Centre for her.

Teaching in the art galleries followed, which was great fun for me, then I ventured to Aston Hall, the Science Museum, Blakesley Hall and finally Sarehole Mill. Within the MAG itself I was to teach about ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, ancient Greece, ancient Mesopotamia and WW2…

However, the initial teaching occurred in those rather poorly used, boringly displayed and generally uninteresting Local History galleries. One set of display cases was spread round a balcony above the main section, Gallery 30 which was accessed down a ramp. This was great for wheelchair access but I always thought that it would have been superb as the entrance to an Egyptian tomb in which to display the Museum’s ancient artefacts. 

There was was a button to press on the wall along the ramp too, which started the playing of an awful folk song called ‘I Can’t Find Brummagem’… Now that, I hated…

The two galleries didn’t inspire much enthusiasm in all honesty, for to show pleasure in discussing The Lunar Society was beyond my capabilities.  Those chaps were prominent industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals who met between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham. They would meet when there was full moon, which made journeying home easier before the days of street lighting. Naturally those wags delighted in calling themselves the ‘lunaticks’… They met at Erasmus Darwin’s home in Lichfield, Matthew Boulton’s home at Soho House, at Bowbridge House in Derbyshire or at Great Barr Hall.

THE LUNAR SOCIETY...

However, after much perusing, several ideas did come to me and I was able to use the displays to put together a conversation session of about an hour, which was more than ample for the time the Year 7 boys would spend with me each Friday.

The stagecoach, called ‘Old Times’ was clearly the biggest item on display, which had once travelled the wider Midlands and was known to have made regular Shrewsbury to Chester trips. We would discuss which were the most desirable seats and why but most lads thought the seats on top of the coach would be the best and the most expensive. Then we chatted about the weather and safety, which was good debating material. Although no-one was allowed to climb aboard in the gallery, I found out very recently that the coach had actually been driven some years back. It was used at Blists Hill and featured on the TV programme ‘Blue Peter’ too.

ABOVE & BELOW: OLD TIMES ON THE MOVE...

The trades illustrated in the gallery were diverse but the ones which were mildly interesting, partly because of their visuals were the pen making and paper mâché displays. One advertisement caused some really good conversation and it was for pen nibs, displayed behind a glass facade but forming a star. The makers? Unbelievably, Hinks and Wells… 

THE HINKS & WELLS STAR ADVERTISEMENT...

The paper mâché or japanned tray, showing an image of a large union meeting in Birmingham in 1832 was superb and conversations arose with the boys about commemorative mugs in modern times. 

There were shop displays but they were inaccessible behind glass windows and often ignored by visitors, also a cabinet of mugshots belonging to Brummie criminals from the early police days. There was a horse-drawn fire wagon, which had to be powered by the pumping up and down of levers by the fire fighters of the day and a quite random sports cabinet containing cricketing memorabilia from Warwickshire, athletics items from Birchfield Harriers and football stuff from the local professional teams. 

THEY ALL SEEM TO BE OVER 50...

THE TWO HANDLES WERE HAND-PUMPED TO FORCE WATER INTO A HOSE...

Another large exhibit in the lower room was the Warwick Vase, a huge item which, er, wasn’t authentic but had once been displayed in the grounds of Aston Hall. The original marble vase was found in fragments in Italy in about 1770 but was reconstructed and presented to the Earl of Warwick. It was installed in Warwick Castle in 1788 but was purchased by Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries in 1979. The bronze copy of the vase ended up for safety I guess in the Local History gallery, totally ignored by most visitors, bar the occasional frown… 

THE WARWICK VASE ON DISPLAY AT ASTON HALL, CURIOUSLY...

The sessions with the lads all went well and the boys seemed fascinated by the oddities in the room and the items about which I chose to debate with them. One of my favourites was a painting of Bewdley in Worcestershire and the boys were shocked to learn that if canals hadn’t been built around Birmingham, then Bewdley on the River Severn would have retained its importance as a trading centre and might well have grown into the kind of place Birmingham is today. However, the painting seemed a little strange because a boat with a mast was heading for Bewdley’s bridge which seemed far too low for a vessel painted that size to pass beneath. More debating would occur about perspective, or whether the mast was collapsible…

The irony of those sessions with King Edward’s School was that one of the teachers who accompanied them was my old history teacher from KEGS Aston, Dave ‘in fact’ Buttress… It was weird teaching his groups and as always, he looked embarrassed and often bumbled during our conversations. He was a bit like Jacob Rees-Mogg in his choice of language but his demeanour was infinitely more likeable than the languid Tory politician and loafer.

Initial teaching about the ancient Romans in Britain...

My other initial teaching session involved looking at Gallery 33, which in those days included a collection of Roman artefacts and a couple of schools enquired whether someone could provide teaching help with that subject. So, once again, I spent time assessing what was there but apart from the memorial stones and some small items, it was clear that I had little to work with. Amongst the limited artefacts on display there were sherds of pottery from Wall in Staffordshire, also Mancetter off the A5 near Atherstone, where it is often thought that Boudica was defeated by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus and his Roman army…

However, in those early teaching sessions, I was able to use a couple of Roman loans boxes of artefacts to pass round to the children for a hands-on and we explored what their uses might have been. There was also a replica of a Roman toga in a suitcase which I utilised but watching a child being helped by its teacher to don the garment was often totally hilarious and one of the highlights of the session.

One of the highlights of the session was noting a few bricks/stones inside a glass case from Wall which had ugly gurning faces inscribed upon them. Apparently the Romans recycled such bricks from British temples to build their own places of worship but were so concerned about the evil attached to the facial expressions they they used those particular stones/bricks upside down to nullify any bad fortune… 

I saw others like them in a small glass case at Wall Roman site itself, which was a good link to discuss with the pupils…

WALL ROMAN SITE...

The initial ideas which formed the basis of my future Roman sessions were perfected in that rather ordinary room which contained glass cases of such small, almost insignificant objects…

Most of the Roman stuff from Gallery 33 was soon removed however and that room became a collection of masks, unusual musical instruments and objects collected from many world cultures…

Next: dinosaurs and natural history…  

FROM FORD ANGLIA TO FORD SIERRA, 1973-MID 1990s... (MY FIRST 7 CARS...)

 From Ford Anglia To Ford Sierra

(...my first seven cars…)

OK, SO THIS WAS PROBABLY MT FIRST CAR...

My Ford Anglia became what amounted to a taxi for ferrying schoolboy footballers and cricketers to matches, sometimes seven or eight cramming inside for the short journeys to playing fields. My subsequent cars suffered in the same way until I moved to work for the Birmingham Museums. The Anglia though did a really great job.

QUITE PROUD...

It was involved in an accident in London too, en route to the old Arsenal ground at Highbury in January 1974, where out of form 2nd Division team Aston Villa were playing in an FA Cup-tie against the Gunners from Division 1. Arsenal’s goalkeeper was future TV pundit and trained PE teacher Bob Wilson, whilst Villa’s number 9 was Irish maths teacher Sammy Morgan, who, er, played without wearing his spectacles…

Villa drew 1-1 but Wilson publicly criticised and vilified Morgan for his ‘physicality’ which was cynically reported in the Birmingham press afterwards. Wilson had encouraged referee Clive Thomas to book Morgan for one challenge on him then complained again about the Villa man’s next challenge which resulted in the centre-forward being dismissed with some 25 minutes remaining. Morgan had headed Villa in front but Ray Kennedy finally equalised against the ten men but Villa held out for a draw.   

MORGAN CELEBRATES AT HIGHBURY...

KENNEDY EQUALISES...

Villa won the replay 2-0 and Morgan scored again, after Wilson was harassed into a poor clearance by Pat McMahon and Alun Evans had crossed for Morgan to head in. Evans scored the second goal for Villa…

ADVERSARIES BACK AT VILLA PARK...

However, back to the journey beyond the motorway, for I was heading uphill towards London in a queue travelling at about 30mph. One vehicle though stopped rather suddenly ahead and typically other vehicles shunted into each other. I was lucky enough to be able to stop and not hit the rear fender of the car in front of me but the van behind me failed to brake quickly enough and caught my rear bumper slightly.

There were Villa fans in the van and they had been drinking bottles of beer, so that both occupants and beer bottles ended up sprawled onto the road. I was able to drive on immediately and reach Highbury but I have no idea how long other folks took to note down the insurance particulars of other drivers…

When I first parked my Anglia outside my dad’s house in Shard End and because the street lights went out before midnight, drivers were expected to park their cars on the left side of the road, facing the correct way of course and use a parking light. This I did for a while… The light clipped over the driver’s window, which was then wound up to hold the light in place. The wire was plugged into the cigarette lighter and of course worked off the car’s battery. 

TYPICAL PARKING LIGHT...

My Anglia suffered a sad demise however, for my future wife Jenny, during an interlude in our relationship, bought herself a white Mini, FOH 215 L, in which she was taught to drive, I think by her brother Roly and brothers-in-law Peter and Barry, although I may be wrong about that.

Sadly she failed her driving test but apparently it was a tough incident which led to the failure. I believe she was driving along a dual carriageway towards the main Kingstanding roundabout in Birmingham and she was told to take the fifth exit, which meant having to move into the outside lane on approaching the major and busy circle. Panic… She made the manoeuvre into the outside lane successfully but on reaching the confusing junction she took the wrong exit… That roundabout with so many exits was always confusing, especially if you didn’t know it well. 

Hence, when my Anglia was in too poor a state for me to drive it any more and it lay on my future sister-in-law’s drive next to Jenny’s mum’s house, I began to use the Mini. Jenny was teaching at Slade Road Nursery, beneath Spaghetti Junction at the time and she had my Anglia towed to the school for the kids to play inside, after the two doors and dangerous items had been removed. Sadly, after a very short time, vandals got into the school grounds and set fire to the Anglia…

JUST ABOUT 50 YEARS AGO, BEFORE I TOOK MY DRIVING TEST...

One last incident involving my Anglia was when we went to someone’s party on the Walsall Road in Great Barr, in an upstairs room round the corner from the Clifton Bingo hall, once a cinema. I parked sensibly but left the party earlier than most and when I returned to my car, maybe less than 25 centimetres of space had been left by other drivers in front of and also behind the Anglia, meaning a real problem for me getting out.

I was really upset but spent a long time edging back and forth until finally, after many minutes, I was able to drive free… 

The Mini was OK to drive but we suffered a few painful times when the ‘points’ failed to ignite the car into action. In fact, driving back from Manchester City one night in August 1976 after Villa had been soundly beaten 2-0, we broke down on the M6 as darkness fell. I must have had my Villa scarf on the back shelf though because we had overtaken another vehicle and the driver had realised we were Villa fans, so when we pulled over to the hard-shoulder because the car was ailing, he pulled in too and after a quick look under the hood, he suggested towing us to the next service area, despite his wife’s protestations about being delayed getting home. He was a Villa supporter too…

It was terrifying being dragged at 40mph in the dark on a short rope and I have had a fear of being towed ever since that day. However, I can’t recall who got the car started again, maybe the guy himself or a mechanic still on duty at the services but I remember being told not to turn off the ignition until I reached home…

CONTACT POINTS...

My next car was bought from Firs teaching colleague Martin Cross, an ugly, brown Austin Allegro Estate, which I didn’t keep for long, eventually selling it to Jenny’s nephew Martin Ballinger.

MART & ME DOING A DISCO SET...

As a replacement I purchased a vomit green Datsun Cherry, KVP 551 P and that car caused some severe problems for me after my daughter Lucy had been born. Jenny had booked a holiday on a caravan site in Wales, at a small place called Burry Port in August 1982, a seaside venue I shall never forget…

POPPING TO MY PARENTS' HOUSE ON MY 31ST BIRTHDAY.
THE CHERRY IS ON THE ROAD...

The car was was packed with baby stuff and the usual holiday luggage, whilst my mother-in-law was also a passenger. Luckily we were travelling as a two-car convoy with Jenny’s sister, her husband and their two young daughters in their small yellow Fiat.

MY CHERRY & ME IN TAMWORTH...

I began to realise as we approached Worcester on the M5 that the temperature gauge had risen well above the ‘normal’ mark and had begun to creep into the overheating range. I left the motorway and flagged down my brother-in-law, who took on board Jenny, baby Lucy, plus mother-in-law and I took on board more luggage from his car as a makeweight and as a space creator. 

I was going to try to find a garage which might have been open on that Saturday morning and I was soon lucky to do so. The Asian guy there was at first unsure why there was a problem but eventually told me that I needed a new radiator. I was stuck and of course no mobile phones were around then… I then rang brother-in-law Roly from a call-box, for his daughter Beverley was going out at the time with the son of a breaker’s yard owner and within a short time, Roly had organised the delivery of a used Datsun Cherry radiator from the yard.

It was taken down to Worcester for me and I was very grateful of course, after spending the intervening time strolling around the rather uninteresting surroundings of that part of Worcester, whilst waiting. Incredibly though, the Asian mechanic’s son was instructed to clean out the replacement radiator with Fairy Liquid and the resolution would subsequently turn out to have been a grave mistake… The repair was eventually completed, I paid and then set out to complete the journey to what should have been a relaxing holiday.

I drove alone to Wales but gradually I became aware that the car was overheating slightly, something which worsened as I neared my destination but I made it to Burry Port, just about. However, a tyre had just punctured as I arrived there, frustratingly within a short distance of the Shoreline Caravan Park. I was hungry, tired, it was tea-time and I was forced to stop. As I got out of my car, I noticed that not only was there a stream of bubbles exiting my car and running away along the gutter but also that one tyre was almost flat.

I watched as the frothy mixture rolled into a drain and then I saw a guy approaching, amused by the bubbles… He was on his way home from work but offered to help me change my wheel as well as confirming that the caravan park was actually nearby. We exchanged the flat tyre for my spare…

I BROKE DOWN OUTSIDE BURRY PORT STATION...

I thanked the guy and drove slowly on, bubbling from beneath the hood, suddenly aware of the dismal, industrial small Welsh town of Burry Port around me. It was like I was on holiday in Smethwick or Sparkhill… Adjacent to the caravan site was a travellers’ camp, which really did it for me…

RATHER LOVELY...

On arrival Jenny was silent and looked totally unhappy with the venue, as was I but I thanked the gods that I hadn’t chosen it… She and the others then duly listened to my crazy tale of the journey there. 

NOT THE BEST BEACH ATTRACTION...

The caravan was actually rather smart but the site was like a holding cell and although the beach had been publicised with some delight by a brochure, its dunes and soft sand were instantly forgotten as we saw at one end of the beach, in all its glorious industry, a power station…

However, we were able to spend each beach day at Pembrey nearby which was a country park and was still sometimes used then by the military as a firing range… I have just found out to that in 1828, a French ship, La Jeune Emma was wrecked off Pembrey and a drowned 12 year old girl from the ship would be buried in Pembrey’s St Illtydes (ill tides?) She was Adeline Coquelin, a niece of Josephine de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s divorced wife. Wish I’d known at the time…  

LA JEUNE EMMA...

PEMBREY...

So, what of the ailing Datsun Cherry? 

Vinegar and caustic soda were used in attempts to flush out the remaining Fairy Liquid from the replacement radiator but the short drives to Pembrey were fine during the week and although no further incident occurred, we decided to leave Burry Port very early on the Saturday morning and try to avoid any traffic build-ups on the way home which could have precipitated more overheating. 

Lucy slept for the whole of the journey home, fortunately but the car finally overheated with its bubbling emissions as we approached a slip road towards Birmingham and so we simply sat there to allow the radiator to cool down, then topped it up with the cold water we had stored in the boot of the vehicle before leaving Wales. 

We reached home safely but the car was sold pretty quickly afterwards, in part exchange for a cream Austin Metro, POE 239 Y. Made me smile some years later though because when my Uncle Jack purchased a Metro and I exclaimed that he had an Austin Metro, Aunt Ivy retorted, “No, it’s a ROVER Metro…”

However, we soon discovered that some guy had been murdered in Burry Port on the Friday evening and after both we and my brother-in-law’s family had left the caravan site, it was locked down for the police to interview all the holidaymakers… We had escaped that horror but had returned home to deal with a damaged tyre and a bubble machine…

The Metro was not involved in any unusual action, surprisingly, except that its registration, POE was slightly amusing considering the vomit colour of the Datsun Cherry but when I sold it, the replacement vehicle, an Austin Montego, had a KAK registration (C 621 KAK…) Hence: vomit, poe and kak…

I saw the Metro again, being driven by its new owner some time afterwards near Acocks Green, which was a strange experience.

However, the Montego caused me such extreme hassle… 

The following information is taken from a letter I wrote to the owner of County Garages, a Mr Manton on the 23rd March 1990…

THE ONLY SURVIVING IMAGE OF THE MONTEGO, WITH MY DAUGHTER WENDY...

Bought on 31st January that year from County Garages’ Bucklands End Lane branch, now of course a site of private housing, within days it was clear that the price-card on the windscreen had been covering up several chips in the glass. Two oil leaks became evident within days and the upholstery on the rear-offside door was clearly detached. The engine soon began running hot too, bringing back memories of the bubbling Datsun Cherry and there was a whirring noise whenever I started the car, reminiscent of a loose fan belt.

Only one set of keys was presented to me and the hood wouldn’t open…

Whilst driving, there was a lack of control over the vehicle when in full-lock, nearside and the steering wheel seemed to want to take over control of the car for me… It was weird.

On the 27th February, the car was taken in by the main service department of County Garages, Chester Road, Castle Bromwich. The upholstery was fixed, the bonnet was unjammed, the oil leaks were stopped but the steering wheel problem wasn’t addressed and a second set of keys wasn’t provided, so that I was advised to get my own set cut…

Apparently there was nothing wrong with the fan-belt and because the cooler-fan was actually cutting in, the engine wasn’t running too hot… However, soon afterwards, the engine so nearly overheated.

Three oil leaks then soon began and subsequently a new gearbox was fitted into the car… Sadly, the service staff then lost my only set of keys, which had as its fob, a Cornish ‘pisky' bought for me by one of my daughters, also my only Krooklok key, plus my alarm control… 

I was subsequently provided with a new Krooklok, two new sets of keys and a promise to sort out the alarm problem which the garage had only actually installed on the day I bought the car.

However, the Montego continued to leak oil, there was still concern over the left lock of the steering wheel and the chips on the windscreen were still worrying, although I felt that it was not my responsibility to get the problem sorted. 

Sickened by the disappointing purchase and the shoddy service which followed, I was asking for the three month warranty to be extended for I was actually without the vehicle for several days at a time. I wrote that I had purchased my Austin Metro from a corner sales forecourt in Ward End and I had suffered no real problems with the car at all for a period of four years, yet County Garages was apparently a respected company and had sold me a lame duck…

On the 18th December 1990, I wrote a letter to Consumer Services, including in the envelope my previous letter to Mr Manton and a previous letter to the Consumer Services, dated 24th June, plus various bills. Neither original letter had been replied to…

I had employed a local father and son team of mechanics at Renown Car Sales, Ward End to complete some work on the Montego, whose bills I included copies of with my letter and also a bill from Autoglass, for something really strange had occurred on 9th August…

The rear-view mirror fell off… I obtained a new sticky-back fixing appliance, pressed it carefully against the windscreen but immediately the whole screen cracked before my eyes like a web of roads on an AA map…

The Autoglass fitter was shocked, if amused when he turned up to help by replacing the windscreen but of course the weakness had been there since I had purchased the car. Good job the screen didn’t break up whilst I was driving…

Oddly, County Garages had grudgingly offered to ‘strengthen’ the screen some weeks before but I had declined because really the whole thing had needed replacing. 

The house drive was partially covered by a huge oil stain, for I had been forced to top up the Montego several times, due to the oil warning light showing up regularly and of course, the car was still leaking drips of oil.

My son Jamie was born in the early hours of 25th November and surprisingly the Montego got us to Solihull Hospital but later that day clouds of oil were expelled from the exhaust pipe as I drove to the hospital to visit from home.

Blanket fog patches were thus causing hazards for following vehicles and so when I returned home again, I abandoned the Montego and my father ended up ferrying me to and from the hospital in his Escort.

Jenny was really annoyed that it was my dad’s car which collected her and her new son from the hospital and I was given some grief about that, despite the fact that it was really not my fault…

I soon dropped my car to Renown but whilst there it refused to start, for the battery had died. It was also suggested that oil wasn’t running into the engine properly and was thus being thrust out through the exhaust pipe…

I was advised to change the engine and sell the car…

I couldn’t afford to purchase a new engine, nor could I afford to have the existing one repaired in some way, so the car was towed away to Thornleigh Motor Salvage where it awaited a replacement engine.

I had been without a car for three weeks and I felt that I had strong cause for complaint. Copies of the letter I wrote were sent to the AA, Austin Leyland’s Head Office, the Consumer Service Department and also Terry Davis, my local MP at the time…

No help was forthcoming from any quarter however and I was basically saddled with the vehicle.

The Montego finally came back to me with a replacement engine and its misbehaviour traits remained dormant until its next, last and quite unbelievable episode occurred in 1994… 

It was 27th March 1994, my parents’ 51st wedding anniversary and also the date of Aston Villa’s League Cup Final tie against the more favoured Manchester United. My daughter Lucy, my father and I had tickets for the game. 

My parents arrived at my house in Hodge Hill around 11am and soon afterwards my other two children Wendy and Jamie waved us off wearing their Villa shirts and holding aloft a scarf. The weather was decent and I drove the M6, M42 and M40, seeing many Villa scarves flapping from coach and car windows. We exited the M40 for Marlow, ate lunch whilst travelling towards the M4 and arrived in Langley at Barbara and Mike’s flat at around 1.40pm.

WENDY & JAMIE WAVE US OFF...

I had met Mike at a couple of Aldershot matches and he had been a bachelor in his fifties until he met Barbara, also single, on a dating site. He lived near Wycombe and she lived in Blackpool but they hit it off and soon married. I was asked to be Mike’s ‘best man’ which was hilarious as I really didn’t know either of them. My speech was therefore unusual and a bit like a comedy sketch… 

MIKE & BARBARA'S WEDDING,
BUT MY JACKET IS NEARLY A WINTER COAT...

Anyway, we drank coffee with Mike and Barbara, I left my car at their house and he then drove us all the way to Orpington High Street but due to heavy traffic on the A40 we didn’t exit his car until around 4.05pm. We walked the rest of the way to Wembley, a stroll of 17 minutes or so.

There was an unpleasant atmosphere however and drunken Villa fans, one of them lying helpless on the ground, seemed to be everywhere. A man and a woman were arguing in the street and at the stadium, I was forced to hack my way through a non-orderly queue to purchase two match programmes at a poorly positioned kiosk. (I would leave them at Mike’s by mistake, later in the evening…) We looked for entrance J and there were crowds massed inside Wembley Stadium. 

Our seats were backless plastic shapes attached to a bench. A decent woman sat to my right and the bloke who had asked me for a programme voucher on the previous Monday when tickets were being sold was positioned directly in front of me. 

Nobody would sit down and the view from behind the goal was difficult to enjoy. The slope was shallow and we constantly had to stand up, before eventually scrambling onto our seats to watch the remainder of the game. My father somehow managed and it’s amazing what you can put up with when it’s something you don’t want to miss. At one point, he was resting one of his hands on the guy’s head in front of him, who simply allowed him to do so… Unbelievable.

United began calmly then missed a goalscoring chance, their ‘keeper Les Sealey tipped a Steve Staunton corner over his crossbar, before Dalian Atkinson scored, pleasing the Villa fans and at the interval the Villains led. The efforts of Shaun Teale, Andy Townsend, young Graham Fenton and the experienced Paul McGrath especially, kept Villa ahead until a flick by Dean Saunders added a second goal for Villa in the 75th minute. Mark Hughes pulled a goal back for United, Mark Bosnich made a fine save for Villa as the game became nail biting for the Lions, then in the final minute, Tony Daley struck a Manchester upright but Manchester’s Andrei Kanchelskis handled Atkinson’s rebound shot, allowing Saunders to rap in the subsequent penalty for a 3-1 Villa victory.

People went crazy, they hugged each other and sang. The League Cup was handed to ‘Big Fat Ron’s Claret and Blue Army’ (manager Ron Atkinson) and we fought our way out of the ground. Someone tried to yank Lucy’s scarf from her neck, someone else attempted to steal the two programmes from my grip but both of those vile Villa supporters failed… Mike awaited us, was delighted that Villa had won and we were back at his flat by 8.35pm. We were about to leave his home when his front door closed behind Barbara and him, and I had to climb a neighbour’s borrowed ladder and enter the flat like a burglar through an open window to get them back inside… 

VILLA SCORE & A YOUNG STEVE BRUCE LOOKS ON (RIGHT)...

We left there at around 9.30pm but rain showers plagued the journey home, where we arrived at 11.15pm after 111 gruesome miles. Lucy slept part of the way back and went to bed with unfinished homework. I sat alone and read until around 1am…

One odd thing about the match though: United’s Paul Ince, a player whose attitude I have never cared for, had made a point of applauding Villa’s fans. A surprise that…

My Montego had done its job but soon, its demise would come…

Lucy had dressed my old teddy bear in a miniature Villa kit for the journey to Wembley, one of those meant to hang inside a rear windscreen but it fitted the bear. Along with my old small cloth duck, Ted lay on the back shelf of the car. 

THE ONLY IMAGE I POSSESS OF MY TEDDY BEAR.
YOU CAN JUST MAKE OUT THE DUCK BELOW TED'S FACE...

I didn’t move them, which was my terrible error and one night a week later the fated Montego was stolen from my drive outside the house. I was astounded… The police called me a few days on and told me that a caller from Tamworth had reported an abandoned car near some garages opposite their house and of course it was my Montego…

A neighbour kindly drove me there to find the car which was filthy, as if it had been driven across muddy fields and of course the ignition had been gouged away. The AA came to my rescue but couldn’t get the car started and it was only after raising the bonnet that it became clear that a wire had been disconnected to disable the car, suggesting that the thieves would be returning to the vehicle sometime soon. 

We found the wire and the car was started, allowing me to drive it home…

However, deeply scratched upon the hood of the car were four huge letters: B, C, F & C, Birmingham City Football Club, obviously… The thieves had found the teddy bear in Villa colours and had presumably chucked it and the duck out of the car window and the letters were gouged to make a point…

My trainers had been nicked from the trunk of the car but the thieves had left my bird book alone, which was their mistake, for there was a £5 note still inside it when I checked. They had failed to find it.

Well, I guess they were Blues fans…

So, my Montego was written off, mainly due to the cost of the repairs to the bodywork and so, once again, I needed a new car… 

STEVE & ME PRESENTING A DISCO, LIKELY DANCING ALONG TO KOOL & THE GANG...

Steve Perry was the boyfriend of Michelle, my brother-in-law Roly’s other daughter and he worked at a car sales place in Moseley. I asked whether any decent cars were for sale there and soon he called me to say that the manager’s wife’s red Ford Sierra was for sale, with not many miles on the clock and so it was that I was able to acquire a Sierra, which was a decent vehicle to drive…

LUCY, MY DAD, WENDY, MUM, ME & JAMIE.
THE SIERRA & DAD'S ESCORT ARE NEARBY...

LOOKED SMART...

All in all, between 1973 and 1994 I had driven seven vehicles, three of which had endured exciting times in my possession…

MY NEXT CAR WOULD BE A VAUXHALL CORSA, BOUGHT FROM 452 MOTORS, CASTLE BROMWICH.
JAMIE LOOKS PLEASED, WHILST MY DAD PRACTISES YET ANOTHER WEIRD EXPRESSION FOR THE CAMERA...