The Way We Were
1959, Tavistock, Devon
‘…when the best way to get your political message across was with a posterbedecked Bedford CA with a brace of loudspeakers on its roof’
SPREADING THE WORD IN PRE-SOCIAL MEDIA DAYS
Politics – it’s a funny old game. So let us travel back to simpler times, long before fake news (or otherwise) could permeate through to the populace via social media, to when, according to prime minister Harold Macmillan, we’d never had it so good. And when the best way to get your political message across, at least locally, was with a posterbedecked Bedford CA adorned with a brace of loudspeakers on its roof.
This shot of – aptly enough – Bedford Square in the centre of Tavistock in Devon, was taken during the 1959 general election, which returned Macmillan’s Conservatives to power for a third time; although it was only the first time with Harold as leader – he’d replaced Anthony Eden, following the Suez Crisis, in 1957.
Parked outside Tavistock’s political powerhouse – well, its Town Hall at least – is, over on the left, one of the ubiquitous Bedford vans, in pre-1958 form with a two-piece windscreen. It’s in the employ of one of the local candidates fighting this constituency and, given the predominance of red, we’ll hazard a guess it’s broadcasting the Labour message of Bryan R Weston. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know the result because, spoiler alert, he came third after Liberal Richard Moore and Conservative Henry Studholme, who held the seat with more than 50 per cent of the votes. Maybe if Richard had used bigger loudspeakers…
Maybe there’s a little bit of political manoeuvring going on, with the blue Minor 1000 Traveller parked in front of the Bedford, perhaps as a blocking tactic. Or, more likely, it’s considerate parking by the Morris owner, so as not to obscure the zebra crossing just out of shot here. All the other vehicles seem to have chosen the Town Hall car park instead.
Moving from left to right, there’s a two-tone blue Thames (Ford) 100E van, albeit one that seems to have had side windows fitted, probably to turn it into a budget estate car without attracting the purchase tax payable on passenger cars but not commercial vehicles.
We suspect that’s the bulbous nose of a Morris MO Oxford behind it, before we’re back into van territory with the white Austin A30 or A35 van, a staple of small businesses before the cargo-carrying version of the Mini came along a few years hence from this picture. It’s next to another Bedford CA, which was just as omnipresent until Ford’s Transit stole its thunder… not to mention its loads and customers.
By coincidence, the statue behind it also has a Bedford title; its the seventh Duke of Bedford, Francis Russell, whose family had been the local landowning gentry since medieval times. Although this particular Francis went off to be the MP of CCW’s home city, Peterborough, in 1809.
Parked by the fence are an Austin A40 or A50 Cambridge keeping company with a Ford Consul or
Zephyr MkI – we can’t see enough of the grille to pinpoint it further, although the lack of two-tone paint suggests that it’s not the flagship Zephyr Zodiac.
The combination of 1950s’ film stock quality and some deep shadows doesn’t allow us to identify most of the cars in the right background, although a couple look to be pre-war, one with an uncovered spare wheel mounted on its back panel. Could it be a Morris Eight Series I or II? It looks like it. Still, at least there’s no mistaking the grey Austin A40 Farina on the end…