The Way We Were: Six page summer special
We kick off our bumper selection of summer scenes with 1950s Norfolk, where visitors are here for an afternoon’s sailing
BLAKENEY HARBOUR, NORFOLK
This charming picture could be replicated today, assuming you could find the right cars, vans and sailing boats.
The Norfolk village of Blakeney, 11 miles west of Cromer, hasn’t altered very much. It was once an active port, but since the River Glaven slowly silted up more than a century ago, only small craft have made it into the quay. We’re just downstream from there, looking over the car park by the riverside.
At the front is a mossy green Bedford CA, most likely a Martin-Walter Utilibrake. This versatile vehicle could act as people carrier, estate car, works van and even camper, though to enjoy all the mod cons you needed the fully-kitted Dormobile. Behind it is a GP 14 sailing dinghy, a classic 1949 John Holt design, and then comes probably the newest car here, a Hillman Minx of Series I or II ‘Audax’ variety, and a De Luxe. Introduced in 1956, this family favourite featured smart and nicely-rounded styling, with many cues taken from American trends – not least those tailfins.
Behind that an Armstrong- Siddeley Lancaster can be seen resting serenely with sunroof and windows down, safe in the knowledge that no-one would be enough of a rotter to reach in and pilfer anything.
The Lancaster was the first postwar car from the prestigious Coventry marque and one of exceedingly few new models introduced in 1945 following the end of World War II. Independent front suspension by torsion bars was advanced, but just 70bhp meant it was never a flier.
Closer to the river and just beyond the little clinker-built rowing boat is a Ford E493A Prefect – it’s hard to imagine that any car park in Fifties Britain didn’t feature a descendent of the pre-war Ford Ten, even one as unconventional as this – then the first of two E-series Vauxhalls, this one probably a Wyvern (missing a rear spat) and a much jazzier two-tone Velox or Cresta beyond the Morris Minor, wearing white-wall tyres. We wonder if it perhaps belongs to a serviceman from America, or rather a British civilian who’s merely keen to keep up with the latest automotive fashions?
Beyond that is a really interesting Woodie that we can’t pin down – an Austin 16, but not the usual Papworth body? Or a big Ford? Please put us right if you know the correct answer.
Further beyond is another Minor, perhaps an Austin 10, a baby-blue Jaguar MkVII and a little old drophead-coupé with pram irons. Facing us, with one door open, is a black Austin A70 Hereford.
The pace of life certainly seems slower here, despite the lack of Mister Softee ice cream vans. Not until the Sixties would they expand beyond West London and Kent.
MUSIC MADNESS
A glance down the Number Ones for 1959 brings up so many names that are still familar today – Cliff Richards, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Shirley Bassey, Adam Faith, Bobby Darin, Russ Conway and so on. But can you name the hit by Emile Ford and the Checkmates? Shakin’ Stevens later covered it in 1987 – What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?
FRANCE BY HOVERCRAFT
You might not have been able to cross the Channel on a cushion of air as a regular fare-paying passenger in 1959, but the SR-N1 prototype was a useful hop in the right direction. On 25 July it crossed between Dover and Calais in a little over two hours, with designer Sir Christopher Cockerell on board.
THREE-POINT SEATBELTS
On 13 August, a dealer in Sweden took delivery of a Volvo PV 544 fitted with a revolutionary form of safety harness created by former aviation engineer, Nils Bohlin. His ‘Basics for the Proper Restraint of Car Occupants’ was given an open patent, which meant that Volvo shared – for free – one of the most important developments in motoring history.
GATEWAY TO THE NORTH
The good people of Watford and Rugby finally had a motorway link as the first section of the M1 opened. Some of the earliest police citations for incidents on the speed limit-free highway were for ‘stopping without due cause’, ‘walking along the motorway’, and ‘driving backwards’.