Buckley’s market matters
My father-in-law John Stewart died unexpectedly this month. I spent a lot of time with the man and I’m missing him, not because he did some great work on my cars, which he did, but for the company, the fun and the stories.
I must have listened to his various tales 10 times each at least: about cars, life in general (he came to the UK as a baby from The Netherlands after WW2 and spent his early years at Fairford airbase), helping to build the M4, his campervan and all the others. But they got better at each re-telling, so I just abandoned myself to the inevitable while quietly wondering how he was ever going to get finished the job he’d planned to do that day.
And yet, fed by multiple cups of coffee and slices of cake, he always did. John was very skilled and had the rare ability to almost see inside and through objects to understand how they worked, be it a Fulvia V4 or a tumble dryer.
To be honest, he was one of those people who was good at everything he did, especially golf – he played off three, if that means anything to you – and even death: he died peacefully in his sleep, and didn’t feel a thing.
At 74 he could still have had his pick of panel-beating jobs, having worked for Keith Bowley at Ashton Keynes (The specialist, June). But he could also paint, rebuild engines or do anything else mechanical while being equally happy to turn his hand to putting in a kitchen or bathroom. He worked hard all his life but, in retirement, all he asked in return for his efforts was some fuel in his car, a much-loved silver SL280 of the R129 generation.
He’d owned various Lotus Esprits as a younger man, restored his Jensen-healey to concours condition and, for a while, was well known for his Interceptor restorations.
If he loved his Mercs most of all, he hated Jaguars with an equal passion having worked at a local dealer, relishing the oft-repeated tale of the frustrated 1980s XJ-S customers who drove their cars through the showroom windows or the “stupid” 4.2 XK engine with its long cylinder-head studs.
Every time I went out in a Jag, his parting line was: “Don’t forget your toolbox!” Which makes it all the more poignant that the last car he worked on was my pre-he XJ-S. He would have seen the irony in that. By the time you read this it should have returned from Wales, painted, the plan being to actually drive it back. The horror on John’s face at that suggestion makes me smile even now.