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 William Morris's answer to the M Type?
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Ian Grace

USA
650 Posts

Posted - 02/02/2019 :  23:37:41  Show Profile
For the 1931 season - they final year of Morris Minor production, Morris introduced a fabric-bodied 2-seater Semi-sports. All standard Minors since 1928 had been saloons, four-seat tourers or vans. Was it the success of the M Type that convinced Morris to introduce a cheaper boat tailed fabric two-seater along similar lines to the M Type? The frame is much heavier than that of the M, more akin to a standard ash frame, so the car was heavier and retained the standard 1" carb. of the other Minors, so no attempt was made at tuning it. But it is interesting to wonder about the connection between the Semi-sports and the M Type which shared largely identical mechanics.

This gives me an excuse I hope to share some very exciting news about one particular example that I restored between 1994 and 2007, and then sold to pay for our daughter's Wedding. I'm buying it back!

Here's the basic story of this car and its illustrious history which only emerged after I had bought it.

http://www.vintageminor.co.uk/Forum2/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=26&p=11645#p11645




KevinA

New Zealand
668 Posts

Posted - 03/02/2019 :  00:35:19  Show Profile
Hi Ian

what a pretty car. I love the pin beading coming to a V at the rear. Probably a nicer treatment than the simpler M type, but the M type is much nicer around the door/scuttle joint area.

Now how do I go about getting a workshop assistant like Amanda :-)

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sullivan

USA
423 Posts

Posted - 03/02/2019 :  06:45:27  Show Profile
Dear Ian
What a lovely tale.
Puts a smile on my face.

Very Best

Brian W Sullivan
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colintf

United Kingdom
1473 Posts

Posted - 03/02/2019 :  07:48:44  Show Profile
Fantastic story Ian :)

Colin Murrell
D0285
Photographer for MGCC (LeMans Classic, Oldtimer Grand Prix etc) & MG Motor (BTCC 2012-5)
http://www.triple-mracing.com/
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Mike the M

United Kingdom
480 Posts

Posted - 03/02/2019 :  16:52:38  Show Profile
Super Ian! Nearly an M type!! (hee hee).

Mike Dalby
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Pedro VB

Portugal
40 Posts

Posted - 03/02/2019 :  18:31:25  Show Profile
Ian Grace

A very touching story. This is what MMM life is about. Love and dedication.

If you ever come to Portugal please let me know. I shall have a MMM waiting for you.

Pedro Villas-Boas

Pedro Villas Boas
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Ian Grace

USA
650 Posts

Posted - 03/02/2019 :  19:18:16  Show Profile
Thank you so much everyone for your warm wishes, very much appreciated.

Below is an article I wrote about the car for the Bournemouth Evening Echo in 1995 - two years after I acquired the car and summarizing what I had discovered in those two years. This was just the first chapter of the story. As the VMR forum post recounts, the car was eventually completed in 2007 after a long and torturous restoration before reuniting the Hambro daughters and other previous owners at Milton Abbey. Now a whole new chapter is about to be written.

Bed-Pan Discovered in Dorset

A vintage car with a long and interesting history has recently been unearthed in Winton, Bournemouth. It is a 1930 Morris Minor Semi-sports 2-seater.

When new, the car remained unsold for almost a year in a Dorset garage, and was eventually registered LJ 4435 in September 1931 and sold to Capt. Angus Hambro of Wimborne. Angus was a very tall man, and the car was very small – similar in size, in fact, to the contemporary Austin Seven, and so he never drove the car himself. It was purchased for his wife to drive and his children to learn to drive in and use as a run-around. Angus had his chauffeur, George Durey teach his children to drive in the Morris. There were six children in all – Peggy and Alec by his first wife, both of whom are now dead, Alec having been killed during the war. When his first wife died, Angus married Vanda and there then followed four more daughters, Patricia, Elizabeth, Jean and lastly Mary.

The car had a black and maroon, fabric covered, boat-tailed body, popular on sports cars of that era and, due to its characteristic shape was christened the Bed-Pan by the family.

Angus’ father, Sir Everard Hambro had owned Milton Abbey, a large mansion in Milton Abbas, Dorset. However, Angus had moved in 1928 to Merly House in Wimborne. At the outbreak of World War 2 the house was taken over by Shell Mex, who were keen to move out of London, and subsequently the Army took over the house. The family moved back to Milton Abbas, to Hill House at the top of the village. Milton Abbey is now a public school for boys. The chauffeur George Durey and his wife, who was the family cook, moved into Hill Cottage near the house. The car had been kept on the road throughout the war, not being laid up as so many cars were. Its small engine provided many more miles than the family’s larger cars for the same quantity of rationed petrol.

Finally in 1947, when the car’s family duties had been completed, it was handed on to George Durey for his personal use. George cherished the car for many years before handing it on in turn to his nephew, Jim Legg in 1955. George’s sister Gertie remembers the car well, and recalls many enjoyable trips in it. Jim, who also lived at that time in Milton Abbas now lives in Taunton and also has fond memories of the Bed-Pan. Indeed, he took his driving test in the car in Dorchester. George and his wife had no children, but another nephew, Col. Ernie Durey, now living in Weymouth has been able to provide a wealth of interesting information about the car.

After two years, Jim passed the car on to a colleague at Bladon Dairies in Milborne St. Andrew where he worked at the time. The new owner was Athur ‘Sammy’ Loveless, and he paid the princely sum of £36 for the car (which had cost £125 when new). Sammy is also no longer with us, but his wife and daughter still remember the car, which they named the Ladybird – also because of its rounded tail. In 1959, after owning the car for some two years, Sammy passed the car on to another friend, Tony Bartlett, also of Milbourne St. Andrew, who acquired the car for his father, Herbert Bartlett, who lived over in Owermoigne near Dorchester. (By this time the value of the car had fallen to just £13.)

Herbert ran the car for some 15 to 18 years, which takes us up to the mid 70’s when it was eventually passed on to Ivor Holloway. Ivor, too is no longer with us, but he also had a wife and daughter. Mrs. Holloway now lives in Wimborne Kingston, and Ivor’s daughter, Barbara still works with Tony Bartlett.

And then the trail goes cold until 1983, when the car was discovered in a dreadful state in a barn beside a garage in Ringwood in the New Forest. It had apparently lain in the barn for many years and had deteriorated considerably in this time. The owner of the garage had obtained planning permission for the land on which the barn stood and so the barn and its contents had to be removed. The Semi-sports was purchased by Brian Mitchell of Winton, Bournemouth, thereby surely saving the car from complete oblivion. Unfortunately, Brian’s health has prevented him from completing the restoration of the car and so, with mixed feelings he sold it on to its current custodian who is restoring the car to its original condition. (The garage in Ringwood changed hands about twelve years ago and the original owner is now blind, and so it has not been possible to ascertain how he came by the car.)

The key that unlocked the car’s history was the old-style brown logbook of the car which has luckily survived, and by careful tracking down the recorded owners or their surviving relatives, it has been possible to gradually piece together the early history of the car. George Durey was the earliest recorded keeper, having registered the car in his name on 22nd September 1947. First to be contacted was Col. Ernie Durey, the chauffeur’s nephew, being the only Durey recorded in the Dorset telephone directory, and who immediately remembered the car. And then contact was made with Tony Bartlett, who had bought the car for his father in 1959. He was also traced through the local telephone directory, since he possesses the same two middle initials - C G – as his father, so there was a good chance that he was related. However, it was the tracking down of Jim Legg in Taunton that finally led to the unraveling of the car’s early history with the Hambro family. Amazingly, Jim still had the AA badge which was once fitted to the car, and which was given to him by an uncle of his who worked for the AA. Jim has now passed the badge on, so that it may once again take up its place on the front bumper.

Three of Capt. Hambro’s daughters still survive. Elizabeth, now Lady Bonsor, lives in Ascott. Jean, now Mrs. Jean Woodroffe lives in Worplesden, Surrey. The youngest daughter, Mary, now Mrs. Mary Seymour, lives with her husband, Maj. Bill Seymour in Crichel, near Wimborne. All three were amazed to hear that the Bed-Pan had survived.

Sadly, the family chauffeur, George Durey is no longer alive. He went to work for the Hambro family directly after leaving school and continued to serve them all his life.

And as for Hill House, when Capt. Hambro died in 1957, his wife stayed on at the house, renting out part of it to Milton Abbey School, before finally making over the house to Mary and her husband in the early 1970’s and moving into a cottage at the gate. The house was far too large for their purposes and so they sold it around 1975 whereupon it was converted into a rather comfortable hotel. It was subsequently sold on again, but the new owner struggled to keep the hotel running during the recession of the early 1990’s and finally its doors were closed around 1992. The house then stood empty until 1995 when it was sold in a rather dilapidated state to the new owners who, hopefully will restore the house to its former glory. (Interestingly, the new owners run a Morgan and an Austin Seven!)

It is very unusual for a car which has had so many owners to have spent its entire life within such a localized area, and this, together with the family or work connections between the owners of the car has enabled the history of the car up to the 1970’s to be unraveled.

It is also surprising that the car has survived at all, since fabric-covered cars tended to suffer from the elements rather more than steel-bodied cars. Some five or six hundred Semi-sports Morris Minors were produced by Morris Motors in 1930 and 1931, only nine of which are known to have survived – the Bed-Pan being the oldest of the survivors.

In fact, Jim Legg believed that the car had been scrapped by its next owner, Sammy Loveless, and so was delighted to discover that this was not the case. And it was also fortunate that the car was not also scrapped in the early 1980’s, when its condition could only be described as desperate.

No doubt more history surrounding the car will emerge in due course, and photographs of the car in its earlier years are eagerly sought. It would also be very interesting to discover what happened to the car after Ivor Holloway sold it in the 1970’s and before it turned up again at the garage in Ringwood in 1983. Once this piece of the jigsaw is in place, the entire seventy-year life of the car will be documented. Since it spent so many years within the area of Milton Abbas, it is just possible that it was caught by a local camera, perhaps outside the village pub in Milton Abbas, known to this day as the Hambro Arms.

When the current rebuild is complete, it is hoped to reunite the car with all those who have owned, driven or been connected with it in the past. In the meantime, the search for further details of the Bed-Pan’s long and colourful history goes on.

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Ian Grace

USA
650 Posts

Posted - 03/02/2019 :  20:59:02  Show Profile
This is how to assemble an OHC engine. Requires baked beans, sourcream, Gordon's gin, bacon pieces, instant coffee, WD40 and a little butter.

Who knew?

The Bed-Pan's engine coming together in Grand Rapids. I have a wife in a million. As does John Nagle. I have a photo somewhere of him de-greasing his cylinder block in the dishwasher.

http://www.vintageminor.co.uk/Forumpix/Engine_assembly.JPG
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