Riley RM Series, 2.5 litre, 1953

The M20 has been closed this weekend owing to part of a footbridge having to be demolished after a truck hit one of the supports last weekend bringing down a large section of the bridge onto the motorway. Fortunately and most suprisingly nobody was seriously injured.

Of course, today was the day I  needed to travel along the M20 to get to the M25 and then M23 to Crawley for the Referees Society Pre-Season conference. Yesterday's experience was that all the diversions were clogged and journeys were taking hours, so to get to Crawley for  9.30am would mean an early start. In the event, leaving Maidstone at 8.00am we arived at the destination in plenty of time to enjoy a pre conference bacon roll.

The journey back promised to be a nightmare as the M20 was still closed and now the M25 was also blocked both ways owing to an accident. We decided to come across country which proved to be a good move and although took about 40 minutes longer than the motorway journey was relatively trouble free.

Being cooped up all day in a conference was not conducive to blipping so it was only when I was near home that I passed this Riley on our estate. I parked up only to meet the owner as he came out of the nearby house. I asked him if he minded me taking a photo and so from that we had a bit of a conversation about this car and the history of the marque which proved interesting. I showed him my blip of another Riley I'd taken recently which interested him - which he said was a pre-war model, he noted the registration number to find out more.