...and a Happier Day

Boy with Morris Owner magazine of May 1927, collection Tom Phillips.

For the last three months I have been working with Tom Phillips on a series of postcard books for the Bodleian Library. He has an extensive collection of private real photo postcards dating from the turn of the century to the 1940's. They are going to be held in the Bodleian Library Archive and they have decided to publish collections of the postcards in small volumes, each covering a different subject matter. The first two books will be Readers and Women & Hats.

There can be a little research involved when trying to date the cards, so when Tom came across this card of a little boy holding a Morris Owner magazine he gave it to me to investigate. As a long time Morris Minor owner I was excited to find the card and sent a scan of it to Nicola Parkins, the new editor of the Morris Minor Owners Club magazine. When I enlarged the card I discovered, to my great surprise, that the cover featured two military tanks!! I wondered to Nicola if Morris had built tanks. She came up trumps and in this month's Minor Matters there is a fantastic article about the magazine the little boy is holding (from May 1927) with the history of the one-man Morris-Martel tankette, a colour reproduction of the original magazine cover, AND I get my name splashed about all over my favourite subscription!

Minor Matters Vol XXXII no 1 July/August 2010

Meanwhile, my 'tankette' has failed her MOT on some worn out bushes. Nothing serious but I'm not sure I'll be fixing them in the spare room...

The van (Elsie), Kitty, Joey and Ralph in Topsham, August 2009.