A very strange place

[rodp]

Have been reading about Ken Wharton and he is undoubtedly one of the unsung heroes of his time. Wharton died an untimely death racing in New Zealand among some of the greats - Jack Brabham for one. I start to see a man unfulfilled with tremendous drive and enthusiasm not to mention engineering skill who was meant to be one of the greats, possibly of all time. My take now is that there was nothing untoward in your workplace other than the spirit of a man whom came home. The energy of this man must have been tremendous - all consuming and my guess is he never let go - he never really left your workplace. And you took some of it apart piecemeal, and I'm not sure he understood quite what you were doing to his man cave as it were. My guess is he did not approve and you chaps pissed him off. I have never seen an area so steeped in history in all my life - there is so much to learn about the development of industry and technology just there around where you worked. Of course we are talking a different era, aspirations of life and legend. Smethwick was an absolute cauldron, as was the whole area - a bleddy dynamo, part of an English powerhouse. Whoa. Thank you for passing it on Rodders. Not sure Ken Wharton appreciated your trucks in his garage. Trusting you may understand my passion. Alf.

Apparently he was very proud of his "new" garage / showroom. Found out the "business woman" with the A35 in the film was in fact his sister, who worked for him

As for his engineering skill there's a surprising amount of folk around here that had, and still do, the same or better engineering skills, it was sort of bred into you here then reinforced at school in metal work class. The careers officers always tried to get folk in to some form of metal bashing to fill the never ending vacancies in the local factories. I myself did a fabrication apprenticeship then went and did time served in freightLiners (British Rail) truck workshops. Put the two together and ended up doing the structural work at a truck main dealers on bodies, chassis (wheel base alterations) hook lifts etc.

That's not to knock the chap at all, just to say he was one of many, he just had the financial backing

[pickle]

Rodp, the Wharton chap was quite obviously a protege of motor racing legend and I had never heard of him. I never realised that you were a heavy metal kid of that era, but then so many of us were born into that environment. Never did me any harm and shaped my future in a sense. As for the Ouija thing, my father stayed on in China Stations after the war, Hong Kong etc and made friends with the coolies, Chinese chaps who serviced the RN ships and did their bidding. A lot of guys like my father held station in this reserve area for RNR and chilled out and there was a lot of gambling and a lot of dhobying. Well they learn't to play Mahjong with the Chinese and were made welcome generally. One of the things he recounted was that the Chinese knew about Ouija and did not mess with it generally and advised that it was not a good idea to dabble unless one was in possession of a particularly strong mind. My father mentioned in passing to me in later years that Ouija was something best avoided and left it at that.