Cars in books, December 1978

It is the illustrations which catch the eye, from a motoring standpoint, in “If Britain Had Fallen” by Norman Longmate (BBC/ Hutchinson, 1972). These WW2 war-time photographs show many 1930s vehicles at roadblocks, used as hazards to enemy aircraft in country fields, and so on. A Railton drop head coupé is seen negotiating a road-block near the coast, formed of ancient bathing-machines and farm-waggons (could it have been that used at the time by The Autocar?) and a Morris Eight saloon is seen at an anti-tank road-block. Another Morris Eight, with van body, is equipped with a gas-bag, and is carrying the slogan “No Petrol? Use Gas”. A baker, obviously without petrol, is using a horse to draw what appears to be a converted Bedford van. There is a picture of General Von Brauchitsch, whose nephew drove for Mercedes-Benz before the war, with Hitler, and we are reminded that not only were all signposts removed from British roads but that ‘buses were not permitted to display destination-boards or time-tables to be issued. On a non-motoring note, some charming bathing girls are seen returning from a beach at which a notice says they are allowed there with an officer “in charge”. Which reminds me that when I went to the South Coast in an HRG to interview a racing-driver’s wife during the war (he was in the RAF), we were apprehended at a barrier and although I was able to pass off the driver as “my photographer”, my girlfriend was unacceptable as “my secretary” and was subsequently fined…

I found little of motoring interest in “Memoirs of an Advertising Man” by John Mellors (LM, 1976), who is one of those curious individuals who, although the human race has been reproducing itself for such a considerable time, is still obsessed with the idea, so that his book is porn-sprinkled to a degree, and I am surprised it escaped the libel laws. It does refer to a Continental tour in a Bradford Jowett light van, which was so slow that the party of four had to make more overnight stops than they had intended. There is even less of motoring in “Ottoline At Garsington” (Faber & Faber, 1974), the second volume of the Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell (1915-1917), but she does refer to the arrival of “motors” at the Oxfordshire mansion during the war, the Prime Minister coming in “a huge motor”.  Also to the use of motor bicycles at that time, even Maynard Keynes running round Cambridge to try to find one, when he was sent for to come immediately to the Treasury, in London, and thought this means of transport quicker than the train. But during WW1 horse-drawn vehicles were used for local journeys from Garsington, as delightfully described in the book. There is a reference to a fatal aeroplane crash at Port Meadow aerodrome in March 1917, presumably to an RFC pilot, Creighton-Jones and Hoskins being the airmen-friends who had taken Dorothy Brett and Lady Ottoline to watch the flying, after lunch at “The George”. Unfortunately she does not include the makes of the “motors” to which she refers but I shall try to obtain the first volume of these memoirs, in the hope that in those pioneering times this information was persuaded into Lady Ottoline’s journal .– WB