the full story, part 5
I was able to get quite a lot of driving practice in even
without the alternator; in good daytime conditions, once started the only power
needed was for brake and indicator lights – everything else needed is
air-operated. There is a motor engineer on the business park where the bus is
kept and he could top up the batteries as needed. I was now in a position to
start theory study for the PCV tests so the opportunity to get out on the road
and put myself in real-life situations was very valuable.
On a cold Saturday morning I drove over to Shepreth, near Royston, to meet Cyril Kenzie. Cyril got his first licence in 1949 and took over Kenzie’s Coaches from his father some years later. His firm carries out bodywork repairs for other operators and over the decades he has taken on his own restoration projects, resulting in quite a collection of top-quality vehicles in as-new condition. As I backed gingerly into what to me seemed quite a small yard, in my mirror I could see a tall, dapper man in a long woollen coat, hands thrust into the pockets. He stood still while I reversed alongside him until he was by the doors. With, perhaps bizarrely, a huge feeling of pride, I opened the doors and his figure was framed by them.
A moment’s silence then he spoke his first words to me…
“You should have come in forwards.”
There were the usual pleasantries; Cyril is a man of few words and he considers things carefully before speaking. So, engine still running, he climbed aboard and had a good look round inside, saying nothing. Didn’t he need to see the outside?
Obviously not, for his next words were:
“Ten grand won’t go far…”
But he did go outside and have a look around; and for the second time since acquiring ‘Mary’, a motor vehicle professional looked into the bramble-inhabited radiator bay and said; “Don’t you want to start with something a bit better?”
Well, I was beginning to wonder. But at least this man was interested. “Better get her over the pit…”
Over the pit??? I was nervous enough driving into the yard, let alone dangling 10 tons of old bus over a hole in the ground!
Cyril guided me in and there was another long silence as he walked up and down the pit looking up at the chassis here and there with a high-power torch. As for me, I am not sure I have ever seen even the underside of a car…yet here we have 36 feet comprising dozens of giant size, head-bashing components, many of which were unrecognisable to me.
“It’s not too bad…”.
Driving back home I contemplated Cyril’s words and began to wonder if I really had bitten off more than I could chew. Sitting round the kitchen table were my wife Rosie, my brother Paul and my mother. After relating Cyril’s’ words to them (which didn’t take long!), up to the point Mum and Paul got up to go the mood seemed to be that I should cut my losses; but then an amazing thing happened. Checking they were out of earshot Rosie looked me in the eye and said “we are NOT giving up on Mary now”.
You see, in the meantime Cyril had put me in touch with Charles Marshall, the MD of OK Motor Services at the time my coach and her five sisters were ordered from new. Cyril and Charles have been good friends since 1963, when Charles was working at Plaxtons and Cyril was a customer. Charles had already given us stacks of information about my coach and what she had been used for; even to the extent that a Mrs McGuigan always sat in seat A1 on the Sunday mystery tours every week throughout the season. Pictures found on the internet were identified; we knew too much about this coach to let her go now.
So we fixed a time to go back to Cyril on a weekday when his team of Darren, Robbie and Ian would be able to look at things in a bit more detail. In the meantime I got in as much driving as I could, which included every novice’s rite of passage – taking out the nearside mirror on one of those trees that jumps out from the verge.
The day came and, after a good hour with all three time-served experts crawling all over this venerable vehicle inside and out, the verdict was…”and this passed an MoT?”
I had taken my coach to Cyril to get the gutters sealed up and the alternator fixed. A week and the best part of five grand later I took back a coach with two new tyres, the remaining four recut to a legal tread depth, brake pads to replace the ones that were down to the rivets, a brake actuator to replace the one that wasn’t working and a replacement for a failed suspension air bag, among other things. Cyril simply wouldn’t allow my coach off his premises and onto a public road without these items as a bare minimum – and this just a week or two after it had ‘passed’ that MoT.
But Cyril made it quite clear; he was not going to ‘look after’ my coach as some kind of maintenance contract. Bodywork restoration yes, but mechanicals no. So the search was on for a service partner.
On a cold Saturday morning I drove over to Shepreth, near Royston, to meet Cyril Kenzie. Cyril got his first licence in 1949 and took over Kenzie’s Coaches from his father some years later. His firm carries out bodywork repairs for other operators and over the decades he has taken on his own restoration projects, resulting in quite a collection of top-quality vehicles in as-new condition. As I backed gingerly into what to me seemed quite a small yard, in my mirror I could see a tall, dapper man in a long woollen coat, hands thrust into the pockets. He stood still while I reversed alongside him until he was by the doors. With, perhaps bizarrely, a huge feeling of pride, I opened the doors and his figure was framed by them.
A moment’s silence then he spoke his first words to me…
“You should have come in forwards.”
There were the usual pleasantries; Cyril is a man of few words and he considers things carefully before speaking. So, engine still running, he climbed aboard and had a good look round inside, saying nothing. Didn’t he need to see the outside?
Obviously not, for his next words were:
“Ten grand won’t go far…”
But he did go outside and have a look around; and for the second time since acquiring ‘Mary’, a motor vehicle professional looked into the bramble-inhabited radiator bay and said; “Don’t you want to start with something a bit better?”
Well, I was beginning to wonder. But at least this man was interested. “Better get her over the pit…”
Over the pit??? I was nervous enough driving into the yard, let alone dangling 10 tons of old bus over a hole in the ground!
Cyril guided me in and there was another long silence as he walked up and down the pit looking up at the chassis here and there with a high-power torch. As for me, I am not sure I have ever seen even the underside of a car…yet here we have 36 feet comprising dozens of giant size, head-bashing components, many of which were unrecognisable to me.
“It’s not too bad…”.
Driving back home I contemplated Cyril’s words and began to wonder if I really had bitten off more than I could chew. Sitting round the kitchen table were my wife Rosie, my brother Paul and my mother. After relating Cyril’s’ words to them (which didn’t take long!), up to the point Mum and Paul got up to go the mood seemed to be that I should cut my losses; but then an amazing thing happened. Checking they were out of earshot Rosie looked me in the eye and said “we are NOT giving up on Mary now”.
You see, in the meantime Cyril had put me in touch with Charles Marshall, the MD of OK Motor Services at the time my coach and her five sisters were ordered from new. Cyril and Charles have been good friends since 1963, when Charles was working at Plaxtons and Cyril was a customer. Charles had already given us stacks of information about my coach and what she had been used for; even to the extent that a Mrs McGuigan always sat in seat A1 on the Sunday mystery tours every week throughout the season. Pictures found on the internet were identified; we knew too much about this coach to let her go now.
So we fixed a time to go back to Cyril on a weekday when his team of Darren, Robbie and Ian would be able to look at things in a bit more detail. In the meantime I got in as much driving as I could, which included every novice’s rite of passage – taking out the nearside mirror on one of those trees that jumps out from the verge.
The day came and, after a good hour with all three time-served experts crawling all over this venerable vehicle inside and out, the verdict was…”and this passed an MoT?”
I had taken my coach to Cyril to get the gutters sealed up and the alternator fixed. A week and the best part of five grand later I took back a coach with two new tyres, the remaining four recut to a legal tread depth, brake pads to replace the ones that were down to the rivets, a brake actuator to replace the one that wasn’t working and a replacement for a failed suspension air bag, among other things. Cyril simply wouldn’t allow my coach off his premises and onto a public road without these items as a bare minimum – and this just a week or two after it had ‘passed’ that MoT.
But Cyril made it quite clear; he was not going to ‘look after’ my coach as some kind of maintenance contract. Bodywork restoration yes, but mechanicals no. So the search was on for a service partner.