On Sunday 3rd May Neil took me on the 39th Ipswich to Felixstowe Historic Vehicle run. This raises money for the Ipswich Transport Museum, which apparently has the largest transportation collection in Britain devoted to just one town. Everything was either made or used in and around Ipswich including several Bristol buses.
Among the 550 other entrants assembling in Ipswich’s Christchurch Park were Barry Naunton from Ipswich with his 410, and Charles Nelson from Thetford with his 409. Neil and Charles continued their discussion about my shared history with his 409; they have now concluded that although we both started out with the Steel Company of Wales, I was with their Chairman whereas Charles’ 409 was with their Managing Director.
At 11:30 we all set off to Felixstowe through the crowds in the park and then past all the people waving from their front gardens. Progress was slow at times as we made our way through several villages and there was a particularly long-winded tailback in Felixstowe where at a crossroads a Policewoman was directing 4 competing queues of traffic. This claimed a few victims as radiators boiled over but I took it in my stride even though I had a radiator full of Radweld!
This was because the week before I thought I would drop a gentle hint to Neil that my radiator might not be up to a 1,500 mile trip through France in a few weeks time. We were queuing at a set of traffic lights and my temperature was quite high when I let a little steam escape. Neil saw this emerging from the bonnet and pulled me in to a lay-by. When he saw that it wasn’t too serious we carried on via Halfords to purchase the aforementioned Radweld. This kept me going until Neil bought me a nice new radiator core made to measure by Colchester Radiator Specialists.
Anyway, when we arrived at our destination I took my place on Felixstowe promenade while Neil and Karen went in search of lunch. Neil had forgotten to bring a picnic and they ended up in a café eating very nice ham egg and chips. This was followed by Peter’s Ice Creams (made in Ipswich) before they came back to see how I was. I was fine of course just soaking up the compliments at the end of a very enjoyable day.
If you want to see grainy footage of me during the run have a look on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-3snRErUA0 at 5:37.
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