Still in UK

Still in the UK.

Mainly about Family and Morgans

Since collecting the Morgan from Felixstowe, we have travelled to Hinkley Liecestershire where we stayed with relatives, Roger & Kathleen .  Roger being the same generation as Phil, descending from another of Dr John’s children, Jean Abigail.

Next 2 days were with Ali & Andy in Edinburgh.  Ali is the cousin of Sally who we spend time with whenever in UK. Sally’s husband Mick and Phil share the same great grandfather, James McKillop Macwhirter.

We drove across Edinburgh to

4 Ainslie Place

, which was Dr John’s home after his return from India.  We photographed the Puce Goose and ourselves out side No 4 and Phil then decided to ring the doorbell for the top apartment ( the house having been divided into flats coincidentally by Ali’s grandmother back in the 1930;s ).

The owner who we met back in 1985 happened to be home and we spent an hour or so with her. At age 89, she has lived there since 1941.  Her father was the chief superintendant for the British government in India.

After our time there, we called at Warriston Cemetary where Dr John Macwhirter is buried.

Leaving Edinburgh on Thursday 4 August in rain as we had experienced travelling up there, we drove down to Newcastle on Tyme where there is the “Discovery Museum” containing regimental records of the 19^th Hussars, being the regiment to which James McKillop Macwhirter belonged.  We found amongst their records, the original of a photo of James, which we had seen before but only as a photocopy.  The museum is scanning a copy for us and sending it home.

Later on 4 July we arrived at Malvern, home of the Morgan Motor Company.

Next day we called at the Morgan Factory and collected a new door lock to replace a broken lock on the driver’s side door.

Afterwards we drove a short distance to Stoke Lacy where we had lunch with Mary and John who own the Rectory where HFS Morgan built the first Morgan car in the small detached garage.  John and Mary are great friends of Mick and Sally from the days when Mick and John were in the British army together.  We photographed our car in the garage where it all began.

We continued on to Wylye where we caught up with Dawn (Roger’s daughter) and her partner Mervyn inspecting progress on the almost completed renovation of their 16^th century house which we saw 2 years ago in its original state.  We finished the day at West Wittering at Mick & Sally’s country house.

This morning, Sunday 7^th, we attended “Goodwood Breakfast”  Hundreds of cars of all sorts, from Austin 7’s to late model Ferraris and a Noble.  Also a half dozen Ford Anglia’s, plenty of MGA’S and only one other Morgan.  Noticed Billy Connolly wandering around which was interesting as Phil is distantly related to his wife, Pamela Stephenson.

Yesterday, serviced the Puce Goose.  Have had 3 problems to date, the first being the wiper mechanism coming loose due to the extent of rain, throttle cable breaking, and an indicator wire coming loose from the new wiring loom.  Each issue easily solved in 20 mins or so as they occurred.

We leave West Wittering on Tuesday and attend Classic Cars Magazine Night at the Ace Café at Wembly.