The open road - also Nineteen Sixty Somefink

Another busy work day gap filler.


Another old pic from my parents house from the 1960s. This one was taken half a mile from here on Matley Lane (possibly then known as Mottram Road). Just edging into the background on the left is Holly Farm, or rather was as there are now houses built over it leading right up to the long stone house in the far right background which just about still stands - Matleymoor.

In the sportcar are my Auntie Dot (Dads eldest sister) and her late husband John. John was in the Royal Marines stationed at Lympstone in Devon and so they settled down there in Woodbury, a lovely little village near Exmouth. I only met my Uncle John a handful of times, from memory when they came back up north for a short time and stayed with us, and not long after when we visited them in Devon on a family holiday. We all lost touch for a few decades until my parents again on holz decided to try to find them. Unfortunately John had not long since passed away but Auntie Dot is still going strong and along with her daughter Kelly have seen my two daughters growing up which has been fab :-)

The car Dad tells me was built by John on the chassis of an old GPO van! This no doubt stood him in good stead because upon leaving the Marines he worked for Phoenix Motors, a Morgan dealer in their village and thus was kept busy maintaining those ash-bodied hand built sportscars that are still made in Malvern to a similar recipe to this day. The garage closed in the late 1990s from what I can tell. It was the first place my parents looked for when trying to track them down and I think like the fields in the picture, has since been built on with houses.

This photo will have been taken during a visit back 'oop north and what an adventure that must have been in the days before motorways. How young, happy & in love they both look with their whole lives in front of them :-)