Close encounters - with Mr Reaper.

[Puffer]

I enjoyed the M40 story - but didn't award a HaHa to the post as the second part was anything but funny - you were lucky there, if rather foolhardy.

Perhaps we should have a thread about 'the long bum of the law'?

[FastFreddy2]

15 hours ago, dww said:

I wonder did it have to extra gauges in a hump in the middle of the dash or were they mounted in the dash just under the dash top, a redesign for the American market.

You are enquiring about a car I owned for about 5 weeks, some 38 years ago. I only remember the colour because it was metallic, which I didn't like.

You drove into a phone box at 100 mph, no airbags, no seat belt, no collapsing steering wheel, no impact cage, no crush zones .... And just climbed out of the rear window? If that had happened to me, I'd have been in touch with the Vatican to get my survival  recognised as 'a miracle'. 

[dww]

Yes I remember when the M40 finished at High Wycombe, and the M4 finished just passed the Maidenhead turning were you had to continue on the A4 to Reading. Yes I have been very lucky on my travels, I have spoken to many fellows about my age about the good old motorbike days, broken legs, arms blind in one eye, months in hospital etc Me no nothing came of my bike loads of times (Triumph 500 twin T100ss) never not even a scratch bit of gravel rash now and again, and never wore a helmet unless it was raining. You cannot tell me that there are guys out there that did not get upto stupid things that you would be locked up for life if you acted the way we did today, not to mention drink driving laws that did not exist then, boy we got away with murder. Evening wing commander trouble leaving the runway and by the way your pissed it was the done thing, watch the early shows of heartbeat that was so close to way people lived in the sixties, even down the policeman spraying his MG with a vacumn cleaner, yep my mum brought one it was pink and grey a Electrolux and it came with a paint sprayer, hexogon shape glass bottle. Love talking about the good old days, when we changed to 100 pennies to the pound that's when it all changed, I was old enough to buy my own heels.

[Puffer]

Ah - nostalgia ain't what it used to be!   Yes, the country has gone steadily downhill (and its pace is accelerating as I write) but I think the rot set in prior to decimalisation in 1971.   I have heard that the death of Grace Archer (of 'The Archers' radio soap) in 1955 marked the turning point, but my estimation is about 10 years later than that - when stilettos, winklepickers, stockings and pencil skirts were on the way out and The Beatles (although good in their way) had usurped proper singers with proper orchestral backing.   

Oh, to turn the clock back 60 years - and preferably be around 10 years older than I actually was - and remain in the pre-1970 era.   But motor bikes, fast or souped-up cars (or women, ditto), drugs and loud music were never my scene, so it was the tamer but equally pleasurable, and largely innocent, activities that appealed, then and now. 

(Excuse me, I have some flowers to arrange ...)