Steam at Much Marcle

To add variety to the motoring round, I like to attend one Traction-Engine Rally and an Air Display every year. This time it was the Steam Rally of the Ross-on-Wye SES, at a nice site near the pleasant village of Much Marcle. But with 30 steam vehicles, 38 farm tractors, most of them post-war, 19 motorcycles (down to 1954), 39 vintage cars and commercial vehicles and 96 stationary engines, it is becoming impossible to report such rallies in detail. However, I was spared the need to seek an Air Display, because the flying of the radio-controlled model aircraft, low-wing and high-wing monoplanes and a very effective biplane, was as good as anything real aeroplanes could emulate. Only six out of the 22 old cars in the programme had assembled on the Saturday afternoon, an insult to the organisers, and these included a 4-1/2 -litre vintage open Bentley and a small Star saloon that were not listed. The motorcycles included a 1912 350 o.h.v. one-off racing Stevens-Precision, a very rough 1921 550 Ariel with a crude fan to cool it, as it had been used to drive a saw, this one waiting to be restored, and Brett’s formidable 1922 Ariel combination. A one-owner 1914 Baby Triumph, last used in 1927, then left to rot over a cow-stall, but since nicely restored, and smart examples of 1926 Raleigh and 1924 Omega, caught the eye. Oldest commercial was Watts of Lydney’s 1915 ex-WD Daimler lorry, once used, after its life as a ‘bus was over, by Corona for delivery work in Cardiff. The duplicated rally programme contained plenty of information.—W.B.