Eagle Weslake Mk1

The Eagle Weslake Mk1 was a Formula One racing car built by Dan Gurney's Anglo American Racers team and driven by Dan Gurney and others for four seasons starting in 1966. In winning the Belgian Grand Prix in 1967 Dan Gurney became only the second driver (after Jack Brabham) to win a Formula One Grand Prix in a car of their own construction. It's also the only Formula one victory for a USA-built car. Thanks to Wikipedia for confirming those details.

The Eagle at the Coys International Historic Festival at Silverstone, July 2000. Entrant Ben Liebert.

Ben Liebert leaving the pits on a practice run at the Silverstone Historic Festival meeting, August 2001.

ERA (or English Racing Automobiles)

ERA was a racing car manufacturer founded in 1933 by Humphrey Cook, Raymond Mays and Peter Berthon. Because of the prohibitive cost of building Grand Prix cars, at a time when it started to be dominated by the German Mercedes Benz and Auto Union cars, they opted instead for the smaller voiturette class. Most of the cars built still exist and regularly compete in historic events and you can read the history of each car on this excellent website.

Below are photographs of five of the cars at the Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1982.

ERA R5B ("Remus") driven by the Hon. Patrick Lindsay

ERA R11B ("Humphrey") driven by Martin Morris

ERA R12B ("Hanuman II") driven by Bill Morris leading R2A driven by Brian Classic

ERA R9B driven by Peter Mann leading a Cooper Bristol

Herm

Herm is a small island about one and a half miles long and half a mile wide and is just three miles east of Guernsey. During our visit to Guernsey Paul and Anna took us there on the ferry.

 Herm seen from the garden of Hauteville House with the smaller island of Jethou on the right.

Leaving the harbour at St Peter Port. The guy on the jet ski on the bottom right followed the ferry for a good part of the journey, cutting backwards and forwards across the wake of the ship. Unfortunately he didn't manage to fall off.

The northern part Herm has sandy beaches whereas the southern half is rocky. This is Shell Beach and at the far end is La Pointe du Gentilhomme, also known as Alderney Point. Unfortunately it was a miserable and not very warm day, but it must be a lovely place to spend some time on a warm and sunny day.

A little bay on the rocky southern part of the island.

Plenty of gulls in the rocky parts.

A view of Jethou Island from close to the one of the landing stages - there are three to cater for different heights of the tide. The smaller island to the right is apparently called Crevichon Island and in front of that are two reefs, Percee Reef and Mouette Reef. In the distance is Guernsey.

A view of Guernsey and St Peter Port from Herm. The ship obstructing part of the view is the P&O liner Arcadia which was on a cruise around Britain visiting Edinburgh, Invergordon, Belfast, Liverpool, Cobh and Guernsey, although because of bad weather it had to stay overnight in Liverpool thereby missing a planned visit to Dublin. If you read this review by one of the passengers you'll see that their opinion of St Peter Port was "nothing much to see in the town except, as many people seemed to have found, a very swish M&S".

Friday's Ferrari

This is a photograph taken at the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992. It shows a group of cars lining up to take to the track for a sports car race and the main car featured is a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa of 1957, serial number 0742TR. There are two other Ferraris in the line-up, a 1957 500TRC, serial number 0682MDTR, (number 42, the yellow car) and a 250MM of 1953, serial number 0390MM, (number 33, the black car). The two other cars shown are a 1957 Jaguar D-type behind the Testa Rossa, and a 1960 Maserati T61 behind the 250MM.

25th October

It's the 25^th of October today.

What's so special about today?

This is what Shakespeare said in this speech by King Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt:

This day is called the Feast of Crispian.

He that outlives this day and comes safe home

Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall see this day and live t' old age

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours

And say, "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian."

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars

And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember, with advantages

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words —

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester —

Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

This story shall the good man teach his son,

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered,

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

For he today that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition.

And gentlemen in England now abed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.

Laurence Olivier, later Sir Laurence and then Lord Olivier,

in the 1944 film version of Shakespeare's Henry V

It's a little known fact (well, at least I didn't know till I wrote this!) that the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War also took place on St Crispin's Day.

Gordon Ford of Stockport - Model T Party (Part 9)

This is the final batch of photographs from this event in May 1997.

1913 Runabout - owned by P L Clements of Notts

1913 Runabout - owned by O B Beard of Newark

1922 Tourer - owned by T R Lee of Leicester

And the last car's not a Ford Model T, but an Austin 7 of the late Thirties which was parked outside the venue.

Sunset

Rather a stunning sunset in Hyde on Friday night and I took a couple of photographs:

This was taken with the Canon EOS with a 90mm lens

This was with the Olympus X-43

This is what it looked like at much the same time in Guernsey.

Friday's Ferrari

Today's car is one from the Ferrari feature at the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992. It's a Ferrari 250MM Panamericana.

Here's what the programme had to say about the car:

'Front engined V12; 3 litres; 240bhp at 7200rpm; ifs/wishbones-coil spring; rigid axle rear/semi-elliptic leaf springs. Introduced 1952 Paris Show. 33 built. Mostly Pininfarina berlinettas or Vignale spyders. Mainly used in competition by private entrants. This car, then with a 2.6 litre engine, was driven by Ruiz Echevarria & Villegas Becerril in the 1952 Carrera Panamericana. It was later brought to 250MM specification by the factory.'

Note April 2015: The serial number of this car is 0239EU.

Porsche 718

These are the two works Porsche 718 formula two cars pictured in the paddock at the 1960 BARC 200 race at Aintree 200. I think the photographs were probably taken during practice as the number 5 car on the right doesn't yet have the number on its nose. That car was driven by Graham Hill and finished third in the race. The number 6 car was driven by Jo Bonnier who finished second and the race was won by yet another Porsche 718, Rob Walker's car, driven by Stirling Moss.

20 is Plenty

All over Tameside these stickers are to be seen on wheelie bins in a move supported (or perhaps instigated) by the organisation '20's Plenty for Us'. The campaign is obviously backed by a lot of Local Authorities and in fact Tameside Council appears to have gone one step further judging by this sign on Werneth Low Road:

which appears to suggest that '30 is dirty'.

Friday's Ferrari

Today's photograph is of one of David Piper's cars, 1964 Ferrari 275LM, serial number 8165, at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1994.

It's lining up in the paddock ready to take part in a practice session for the Pre-1970 Le Mans Car race and is being driven by the singer Chris Rea, who is of Italian extraction and has a well-known passion for Ferrari racing cars.

Gordon Ford of Stockport - Model T Party (Part 8)

Some more photographs of the event of May 1987:

1925 1-ton Vinyard truck - owned by Leeds Commercial of Leeds

1921 Country Bus - owned by A J Onions of Shropshire

There's no picture in the programme for the next two entrants

1925 Truck - owned by B Carter of Middleton

1911 Van - owned by Peter Green of Bury

Friday's Ferrari

The Cheshire Cats' Trophy meeting organised by the Jaguar Drivers' Club at Oulton Park in April 1987 included, as was usual in this type of event, Inter-Marque races in which drivers of other makes of car were invited to participate. Several Ferrari 308GTBs took part and the photographs below show three of these cars.

Car entered and driven by Colin Lee - being unloaded from its trailer above, and below exiting the chicane which was then known as Foulstons and heading towards the Knicker Brook corner. The area where cars are gathered and prepared prior to racing is known as the paddock and the paddock at Oulton Park in 1987 suggests the original meaning of the word - 'a fenced area used chiefly for grazing horses'. The whole area is now completely covered in tarmac. In the background you can see the footbridge which used to cross the circuit near to the start/finish line, but which was removed some years ago.

Another 308GTB in the paddock, this one being entered by Trafford Brake and Hose Services Ltd and driven by Malcolm Little. This car contested the Gordon Russell Furniture Inter-Marque Championship race together with the above car of Colin Lee.

This car, entered by Huntington Antiques Ltd with the driving shared by Mike Golding and Tony Harvey and seen here rounding Lodge Corner, took part in the later 100 mile Cheshire Cars' Trophy race.

The Little Chapel, Guernsey

When we were in Guernsey in June Paul took us to see The Little Chapel, the building of which was started in 1914 by Brother Deodat, inspired by the grotto and basilica at Lourdes in France. The whole thing, outside and inside, is covered in shells, pebbles and broken pottery, has undergone a couple of rebuilds and has an ongoing programme of repairs and improvements, and you can read about it here.