It is still early in 2014. Whilst I was waiting for the rest of the shiny bits and new sump plug to arrive I stripped down and thoroughly cleaned my master cylinder and fitted all the nice new seals, clips, grease and rubber cover from my master cylinder repair kit.

All done without any drama…that is, until Mrs FB came home from work and pointed out - rather forcefully I thought - that the kitchen top was probably an even more unsuitable place to be playing with dirty car bits than the coffee table. I thought this a little unfair as I had thoroughly cleaned it first and I wasn’t “playing”. But I had learned my lesson and kept my mouth firmly shut, thus avoiding another trip to A&E.
 
I think now would be a good time to tell you about one of my father-in-law’s prized possessions. A truly massive and comprehensive imperial and metric Draper socket set with almost every socket, hex key, screw driver bits and ratchet drives you could ever possibly need in life. It was bought for him as a birthday present by his eldest son with his 1st proper paycheque back in the early 80’s (Sadly, one of the bereavements mentioned earlier.)
 
I knew of its existence because I had been allowed to look - and only look - at it when he was rebuilding my Marina engine all those years ago. So, it was with some trepidation that I asked to borrow it when I set out on my re-commissioning. To my surprise and great honour he said yes. He pointed out that the sockets may not all be in the tray in the correct size order. I took this as being his way of saying that “They had better all be in the tray in their correct size order when I get it back” and duly noted this.

At this point, I think I ought to point out that what followed was a result of my bumbling incompetence and any impression that I was being “clever” is purely accidental.
 
I’d returned to the lock-up one evening after work and was fiddling around underneath the car trying to find a socket that I could perhaps hammer onto the drain plug. (Don’t worry, these sockets were from my own small cheap set that I had long discovered were made of a silver chocolate-like substance rather than proper metal.)

​I inadvertently put a socket onto Poppy's squarish drain plug the wrong way round and discovered that the square receptacle for the drive in the back of the socket was a passable fit. This set me thinking. I quickly got up and went to my father-in-law’s socket set banging my head in the process. A search of the impressive display of gleaming implements soon turned up what I was looking for, a largish hex key, the correct spanner to fit the Hex part and another spanner to link to the 1st to improve leverage.
 
I got back under the car and fitted my improvised “Triumph rounded off drain plug removal tool” to the rounded off drain plug and applied the requisite pressure. Realised I was trying to turn it the wrong way and spent a couple of minutes trying to work out how to link the spanners to go the other way. I then applied the requisite pressure and undid the drain plug and was rewarded by a flow of very black oil.

​I very quickly refastened the drain plug while I went in search of my patented drained oil receptacle that I’d forgotten, and a large wad of paper towel to mop up the spilt oil! I then removed the drain plug again and filled my patented drained oil receptacle. (A 5L oil can with the side cut out.) I had a celebratory cup of tea while the rest of the oil fully drained and then swapped the oil filter, fitted the new, still very square drain plug and topped up with fresh 20w/50.
 
It was getting dark now but buoyed up by my success, I decided to remove the front callipers and hoses ready to fit the new shiny ones when they arrived. I put the front of the car on axel stands and had the job done surprisingly quickly all by the headlights of my strategically placed modern. The Honda then suffered the embarrassment of having to be jump-started from the Triumph before I could go home.

During my time as an officer in the West Midlands Police, no vehicle tugged at my heartstrings quite like the Ford Transit van.

Easy and car-like to drive, with a commanding view of the road and, in its dual-wheeled V-6 configuration, very respectable performance the humble Transit was a wonderful vehicle.

When I received authorization to drive these, I wasn’t over-impressed, however the mere fact that most of my colleagues did not have that authorization meant that I was somewhat in demand as the designated driver, something that I never objected to.

The version that I drove most often looked very much like the photo above, but without the windows along the sides. A plain van with the red stripe and blue light with seats along each side of the van was always useful as people could never know how many officers the van contained. We were able to quiet a rowdy gathering merely by parking close to them, even though there were only two of us. It was the element of the unknown.

A frequent occurrence was that a dozen or so officers would work overtime on a Friday and Saturday night from 9pm until 1am by which time the hooligan element had pretty much dispersed, this being in the good old days of reasonable licensing hours, of course. I didn’t always volunteer for this duty, but on occasions when they needed a driver for the van I’d give in. 

Most of these patrols would be uneventful, as mentioned before, the mere presence of the van which, on a weekend the yobs recognized would be full of coppers, was enough we would sometimes have our bluff called and would need to turn out and correct some attitudes or give a select few a ride to the nearest nick for an unplanned bed for the night. The beauty of being the driver was that you would be the last one out of the van, thereby missing out on a prisoner and the ensuing paperwork. There was a method to my madness.

I remember one occasion very well. It had been an unusually quiet Saturday night, no one wanted to fight and so I parked the van on the empty car park of a pub that had closed an hour before, and we sat watching the traffic negotiate the large traffic island right there, in case there were any drunk drivers to nab. Not our prime consideration, but you take what you can get…

A call came across the radio, asking units to look out for a blue Ford Escort estate, stolen within the past ten minutes from a home nearby. As soon as the broadcast finished, what should come around the island right next to us, but that Ford Escort estate, occupied by a handful of young skinheads. 

I threw the van into gear, activated the blue lights and took off after the car like a greyhound released from the gate. The sergeant seated next to me had been dozing off, as had the officers in the back, and so they were none too pleased to be stirred from their slumbers in such a rude manner. Amid cries of “What the @#*&” I explained that we were after a stolen car, at which point the cries of dismay were replaced by shouts of encouragement. Did I mention that these big vans were fast? They were! 

In third gear I pulled alongside the Escort, straddling the white line and forcing oncoming traffic to give way, at which point the Sergeant instructed me to ram the car. Having already mentioned the fact that I was averse to paperwork, it will come as no surprise to you to learn that I was having none of that, plus I wanted to get some poor bloke’s car back to him in one piece.

It was then that I developed my strategy. Seeing parked cars ahead, I simply kept pace with the Escort, matching every change in speed. With my greater size and power the car thief was stuck, and he knew it. Gradually he slowed, and came to a stop behind the nearest parked vehicle, at which point the van emptied and a number of very eager coppers bailed out, surrounding the car and pulling the occupants out to throw them in the back of the van. One particularly large colleague offered me the driver as my prisoner since he said that I’d earned it. I declined, saying that he had grabbed him therefore he deserved the arrest. Besides, I was so pumped full of adrenaline I needed to calm down for a while…

He was ecstatic, and afterwards wrote a glowing duty report, endorsed by the Sergeant, in which he sang my praises as a driver. That gained me a lot of Brownie points!

Thanks to the power and versatility of the Ford Transit van my friend and three other officers had arrests, we had a good end result for the night’s work, I was awarded a more advanced-level driving course as a direct result of that report and avoided several hours’ worth of paperwork, the Escort’s owner got his car back - undamaged – so everyone was happy. Except for the car thieves, of course, but since when did a car thief ever merit sympathy?

​It’s still January 2014 and my re-commissioning starts in earnest. 

Funds are still somewhat restricted so all work would have to be done myself in my council lockup. As the lockup is ¾ of a mile away from home, has very limited space, has no power, lighting, washing facilities or, more importantly, tea or bacon butty preparation areas, conditions were far from Ideal. With my comparative lack of spanner skills, I knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge. Surprisingly enough though, I was really looking forward to it and couldn’t wait to get stuck in.
 
I ordered the plugs, points, HT Leads, filters and fan belt along with a new water pump and everything I thought I would need to sort the brakes out. As it had been sat without fluid for some time I’d decided to replace the seals in the master cylinder and replace everything else except the metal pipes
 
Unfortunately the recon callipers and water pump were not in stock but I asked for the service parts to be sent so I could start work. The rest would follow when available.
 
The parts arrived the next day and I couldn’t wait to get started. Saturday morning dawned cold and grey. I donned my best mechanics clothing which consisted of a pair of track suit trousers with holes and an old Leicester rugby top. (Well I wasn’t going to get my Gloucester one dirty was I?) I’d also thought long and hard about the limitations of my work space, outlined above, and came up with a cunning solution. I took a flask of tea with me!
 
I arrived at the lockup at the ridiculously early time for a Saturday morning of 8am, opened the bonnet and enthusiastically set to work. I soon had the plugs points and leads changed and fired her up to see if it all still worked. It did, which was good. I then removed the cheap pancake air filter I’d fitted some time ago because I thought it would look “cool” but actually seemed to reduce the power available. I fitted the old airbox, which I’d kept, with a new filter element and fitted it back to the car. I then adjusted the carburettor until smooth running was achieved.
 
Next, I removed the brake master cylinder ready for its new seals, drained the coolant and refilled with the correct mix of water and antifreeze. I’d remembered to bring some water up with me in our caravan water drum. I haven’t told Mrs FB about this yet and could really do with some advice on removing oily fingerprints from plastic water drums before she finds out.
 
It was about then that I remembered that I was going to change the water pump. So I drained out the correct mix of water and antifreeze loosened the dynamo, removed the fan belt and removed the water pump and fan assembly from the water pump housing, only to discover that there was not room to remove the pump and fan around the radiator, hoses and engine etc. I loosely refitted the water pump and set about removing the radiator so I could then fully remove the pump and separate it from the fan. I put the nuts and fan in a safe place for reassembly when the new water pump arrives. I did all this without using any bad words and benefitted from the added bonus that I now had much easier access to turn the crank whist setting the tappets.
 
I was feeling rather proud of myself for my achievements so far. Now, my old Granddad was forever telling everybody that would listen that “Pride cometh before a fall”. If I’d have remembered this, perhaps I wouldn’t have been quite so confident when I dived under the car to drain the oil.
 
You see, I’d forgotten that Triumph herald drain plugs don’t have sensible hexagon heads that a standard socket/spanner would fit nicely. No. they have square heads that get rounded off when you try to remove them with poorly fitting sockets, spanners, mole grips, pliers or whatever you can think of at the time. So when I dived under the car to drain the oil, I was greeted with a nicely rounded off squarish drain plug.  I decided to call it a day and went home to order a new drain plug being fairly certain I was going to fully butcher the old one. 

I only owned a “current” (rather than what might be termed a classic) vehicle once while I was in the UK, this being a 1982 MG Metro. I’ll admit to having rushed into ownership, but the car was available locally at a BL dealer and was in immaculate condition with low mileage. I had also always wanted an MG, but one of the products of Abingdon was out of my reach, for reasons both practical and financial.

Eighteen months old when I bought it, the car was finished in an attractive shade of silver. I liked the styling that the car had been treated to in order to differentiate it from the common or garden Austins, and although it wasn’t the Turbo model, I felt that it had sufficient performance to serve as a commuter car and family runabout.
​
It had MG badging, vinyl graphics and a tailgate spoiler, with “pepperpot” style alloys. A common problem with these is that they would not want to come off if you needed to change a wheel due to galvanic reaction, of which I knew nothing until I needed to change a wheel. 

Other than this, the car never missed a beat. I remember driving this car with my wife, two little girls, a rather large Labrador, plus a week’s worth of “stuff” to the Welsh coast for a holiday in a friend’s caravan. 

The car coped admirably, thanks to the versatility of the unusual (for its time) feature of a one-third/two thirds folding rear seat. No car sickness from either child or the dog, and only a few calls of “Are we there yet?”

The interior, with red carpets, cloth seating with red highlights and nicer levels of trim was a pleasant place to be, and it was only the arrival of a third child that necessitated a switch to a larger vehicle.
​
I liked the car, rather a lot in fact, and I would contend that it was as much a “proper” MG as any of its saloon-based predecessors. It served to introduce me to the MG Owner’s Club (which had a chapter for the “modern” MGs), and although I didn’t have it for long, I can say that I would have another one, without question.
​