Night of the garter...

It started as an Allard occasion. The car’s owner had had his trials Allard at the works for overhaul and Sydney Allard asked whether I would care to deliver it to the start of the event he was to use in it. This was a United Hospital & University of London MC’s mud-lark, starting at the ‘Cotswold Gateway Hotel’ at Burford, as many trials then did. It was explained that I could get back in the hack Ford 8 saloon lent while the Allard was being fettled.

I was delighted, especially as I was told I could enter the Ford in the trial. So at some unearthly hour on the Sunday I set off, with a girl. Apart from the Allard shedding a whole nave-plate in Tooting, which shot across the pavement towards a shop window but was retrieved before the policeman got there, all went well. Until, that is, our arrival at the start of the trial, when I noticed that one of the girl’s garters was around her ankle. I therefore decided, to spare her blushes, that we should grab our number and start immediately on our trial route. After hours of furious motoring in view of the car’s instability and youthful enthusiasm, involving an exit into a bush and back again at one section, we came to the lunch stop. But, garter still visible, I decided to forego food to avoid comments from the distinctly jolly medical students.