My other car is a Tardis . . .
QUESTION
What became of the vintage car driven by Jon Pertwee in Doctor Who? TO defend the planet from aliens, the Doctor needed an earthly mode of transport. This was the yellow car that first appeared in the 1970 episode, Doctor Who And The Silurians.
It was a kit car based on a 1954 Ford Popular chassis constructed by Siva & Neville Trickett Ltd of Dorset, southern England. Though fibreglass, it was made to look vintage.
Bessie, as she was called, was road legal and registered as MTR 5. However, she suffered many reliability and handling problems that resulted in a total rebuild during the tenth season of Doctor Who. Tom Baker also drove Bessie in his first series, as did Sylvester McCoy in 1989.
The car’s final appearance was in Dimensions In Time, a Children In Need charity special, in 1993.
Bessie now resides in Beaulieu National Motor Museum in Hampshire in south England. N. Cooper, London SW10. BESSIE was a Siva Edwardian kit car. Siva sold parts to be bolted onto a stripped-down donor vehicle, a ‘sit up and beg’ Ford Popular (103E), which was in production from 1953 to 1962.
The completed Siva Edwardian had distinctive spoked, carriagetype wheels – with equally distinctive Ford Popular wheels lurking beneath. The spoked wheels were merely a fibreglass moulding affixed to the real vehicle wheels.
In 1968, when the kit was first in production, the motoring magazine Hot Car published an extensive article covering the conversion of a donor vehicle into an Edwardian. David Marks, Orpington,
QUESTION
Kent. Is Cleeve’s the oldest confectionery brand in Ireland? Who was its founder? CLEEVE’S is indeed among the oldest confectionery brands made in Ireland. It closed down in 1985, but it has been restarted.
The brand goes back 120 years, but the firm that originally produced this rich variety of sweets dates back to 1883.
The company that produced Cleeve’s confectionery was set up by Thomas Cleeve in Limerick in 1883 as the Condensed Milk Company of Ireland. He was a Canadian, of English extraction, who had come to Limerick as a teenager to work for the agricultural machinery supply company run by his uncle. Over the following 20 years, Cleeve rose within its ranks to become managing director.
He then spotted a gap in the market and founded the Condensed Milk Company to produce tins of condensed milk. He started the new firm with Edmond Russell, a well-known local businessman, and William Beauchamp, a local solicitor.
The new company was an immediate success and by 1899, it was bringing in milk from 3,000 farmers and producing 60,000 tins of condensed milk a day.
At that stage, the firm was employing 2,000 people and by the start of the First World War, that figure had risen to 3,000.
At the end of the 1890s, Cleeve decided to go into the confectionery business and set up a separate factory to produce such items as Cleeve’s toffee, and the brand soon became popular far beyond the boundaries of Limerick city.
However, the parent company went through very difficult times during the War of Independence and then the Civil War. In 1927, a new semi-State company, the Dairy Disposal Company, was started, to rationalise dairy production. It took over the Condensed Milk Company, which continued trading, as did the Cleeve’s confectionery company. This situation continued until 1974, when the condensed milk firm was sold to the Golden Vale co-op, which itself eventually became part of the Kerry Group. Confectionery production continued until 1985, when it closed down.
But Cleeve’s is now back in production, made by Hazelwood Confectionery at its plant in Newbridge, Co. Kildare. One of Cleeve’s unique products was iced caramels and from 1990, these were produced first for Cadbury and then for the Lemon’s brand. But as of this year, they have started to be produced under the Cleeve’s brand.
Now that the brand has returned to the shelves, the logo and the packaging design remain strikingly similar to those of the original Cleeve’s products from 120 years ago. Cleeve products now also include such lines as sea salt caramel crisp bars and macaroon chocolate bars.
Lemon’s sweets was an older brand than Cleeve’s and was set up in Dublin city centre in 1842. Its factory in Drumcondra opened in the 1920s but closed in 1984, although the actual brand continued in existence. Another old Irish sweet brand, Oatfield, dated back to 1927, but in 2012, production was transferred from Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, to Kettering in England. These days, Cleeve’s is one of the very few confectionery brands sold in Ireland that is still made in this country.
Breda Mackintosh, Limerick city.
QUESTION
Border collies are fantastic sheep dogs. Are any other breeds used to work with flocks? AN earlier answer mentioned the Australian kelpie. I saw this at Gledswood Homestead, New South Wales.
The herdsman said his kelpie had just had pups and was eager to get back to work. He sent her out to find the sheep, which were normally kept in the far corner of a field. But to test her skills, he had hidden them behind a hedge.
The dog ran to where the sheep where normally kept and then into the next field to collect and return them to the herdsman without being given any commands.