82 thoughts on “ALL OUR YESTERDAYS”

  1. Pic 3: Internal evidence suggests a waterfront at or near Whitby.

    Pic 13: I’m dying to find out who that is playing the trombone.

    Pic 14: A Lamborghini tractor

    Pic 16: Bismarck, or possibly Tirpitz, but I’m going with Bismarck

    Pic 20: Two horses — a Renault 2CV

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      2. We had got our car stuck in the mud down our track, our first winter here in Extremadura. Our daughter was dead impressed when we later told her we’d been rescued by a lamborghini

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    2. Anent pic 3 – there is a long-established pub on the Thames in London called The Prospect of Whitby. I wonder if this could be an old photograph of it taken from the river. Until the 1950s the Thames was notorious for fogs and the absence of much background could be river fog obscuring north London behind the pub.

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    3. Well spotted, DonDon.

      Pretty sure someone will know the trombonist.

      Yeah, pretty posh Lamborghini, huh?

      Bismarck is right as is la petite voiture française.

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    4. Pic20 is a Citroen DonDon, but a 2CV for sure – literally Deux Chevaux Vapeur, two steam horses (i.e. two horsepower).
      This was the tax-rating for the engine, based on a formula involving the area of the cylinder bore – the smaller the bore, the lower the tax – hence so many cars of the era having small bore/long-stroke engines (which also ran better on the poor fuels of the post-war time).
      That’s enough bore-ing…

      All that being said, Renault built a 4CV, a highly successful design with a slightly larger rear-mounted engine, much seen in street scenes in French films and TV shows of the 1950s and early 60s and sometimes seen as their answer to the Volkswagen Beetle…

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      1. m0reg0, the original pre-war prototype of the 2CV only had one centrally-mounted headlight. Not a lot of people know that (though m0reg0 probably does).

        I invariably get the names of the two big French car manufacturers mixed up, even when I remember to check. (Note to self: DOUBLE-check)

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        1. Aye DonDon, I suspected it was just a mere lapsus calami, as I’ve often mixed up the twain myself…
          The 2CV (Citroen!) has a fascinating history and was a real clean-sheet design, owing nothing to previous models or ideas within or without the company.
          The prototypes were hidden from the occupying forces during WW2 to stop them from “borrowing” them…
          It was designed to do a specific job and whatever it took to do that job was how the car resulted, hence its unconventional looks.
          (The most recent clean-sheet design which comes to mind was the Fiat Multipla of the late 1990s, which worked wonderfully well but looked just weird…)
          2CV – a terrific thing and worth its cult-status in today’s classic car scene.
          Try buying one and see how much it’ll cost you!
          Even rust-buckets are around three or four grand…

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            1. Aye Tris, 20 years ago you could have picked a decent one up for a couple of hundred €. Now you need a second mortgage…
              The Multipla had its charms, in spite of looking like a car with a big body and a small roof.
              Worked well, and that’s what matters…

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            1. Electric shocked, I take it?
              The old flat-twin air cooled engine in the 2CV was feeble and noisy but part of the charm.
              I wouldn’t put an electric motor in it if it was mine – especially at those prices!

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            1. Thanks Nigel, love these videos of old classics.
              Great watch.
              The 4CV Renaults notoriously had the petrol tank in the engine compartment at the back, just above the electrics.
              Can’t think why that would be a bad idea…

              Thanks for posting, Tris.

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  2. Chriss Barber on trombone, one of the leaders of the 1950’s “trad” revival. One of the three B’s, Ball,Barber and Bilk. Lineup included Pat Halcox ( trumpet) and Monty Sunshine (clarinet). Latter featured on a minor hit, Petite Fleur.

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  6. Pic3 – DonDon’s right it’s the Prospect of Whitby but it’s not anywhere near there: it’s in London, Wapping, and it’s still there but a bit smarter looking these days. Pic9 – The A4 pacific (centre) looks like 60023, Golden Eagle. Pic16, as DonDon said, is Bismarck. Pic17 is French chanteuse, the lovely Francoise Hardy.

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  7. #12 – A trio of Duple bodied Bedford VAS1’s, a type of small bus (29 seat usually) much used by MacBraynes in the mid-to-late ‘60s. Well suited to narrow highland roads!

    The vehicle on the far left could be in traditional MacBrayne red/green livery, not so the other two, but if the image dates from around 1970 (when MacBrayne were taken over by Highland) the other two could be ex-Macbrayne vehicles repainted in Highland livery?

    A wee bit of’ jiggery’ reveals that their destinations are respectively (from l-to-r) ‘Back’, ‘Plasterfield’ and ‘Barvas – Callanish Circular’ so location can only be……. 😉.

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    1. Plasterfield is somewhere I’d like to go (and so would Munguin). Then once we’d been, we could always go “Back” to “Plasterfield”

      🙂

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      1. “Willowbrook coachwork, Roddy?”

        Possibly Nigel but probably not, its’ complicated. 😉.

        Duple acquired the Willowbrook business in 1958 and began manufacturing Duple products in Loughborough as ‘Duple Midland’ resulting in identical designs variously labelled Duple / Willowbrook depending on where they were built – not making an anorak’s life easy. However having checked the MacBrayne fleet-list I see their 50 or so VAS1’s all had Duple bus or coach bodywork (although a fair number are listed as ‘Duple Midland’ thus manufactured in Loughborough at the Willowbrook factory)

        MacBrayne had 2 larger (40 seat) Bedford SB5’s with ‘Willowbrook’ bodies (pictured here).  From a limited front view how can you tell them apart?

        Highland UGB138H

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    3. Lewis football must have offered temptations to subs on local newspaper subs. POINT RESCUE POINT IN BACK TO BACK DRAWS VS BACK.

      One of my unforgettablen bus journeys was from Lochboisdale to Lochmaddy after a very late Claymore sailing in 1970.. Must have been near end of McBrayne’s time.

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    4. From this I deduce that the 2 vehicles on the right are probably operated by Mitchell of Stornoway while the farthest bus is probably MacBrayne, who did operate in the Outer Hebrides and tried (failing) to purchase the Mitchell business in 1963.  

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      1. The buildings hereabouts which were built with local sandstone (e.g. the churches, most of the chapels and the old primary school) were completely black, because not only did we have a steelworks but nearly everyone had coal fires.

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        1. Yep, and people’s lungs must have been too.

          I can remember in the 80s spending a day in central London while having a cold, and when I blew my nose, what came out was all back.

          It must have been so much worse when coal fires and foundries were the norm.

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  10. The Humber Super Snipe in Pic7 is a Series III and was seen most often in use by government ministers or minor royalty as their posh car of choice.
    This version has gone full American in styling, with twin headlights, white wall tyres and wrap-round windscreen.
    Smooth 3-litre six engine.
    Sumptuous but there are very few left today….

    The alternative to the Snipe was the Rover P5, seen in Pic10 at the launch of the P5B variant in 1967.
    The B was for Buick, as it was fitted with the new (for Rover…) Buick 215 derived 3.5 litre V8 engine, replacing the venerable 3 litre straight six, which carried over from the older P4 model and had had its day…
    The new(er) engine transformed the P5, able to hustle the old sledge along at a respectable rate of knots and give it a welcome extension to its production life.
    Still seen in official use well into the nineties in some cases, eventually being replaced by XJ6 Jags…

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    1. I appear to have “liked” myself…
      Self praise being no honour, I shall endeavour to be more circumspect in future 🙄

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        1. Munguin is fully entitled to like himself, as he’s our favourite penguin!

          The “like” happened quite by accident, Tris.
          I was clicking on another part of the page just as the whole thing jumped and I ended up on the “like” button – the first time I knew it actually worked!
          When I first posted on AOY a moon or ten ago, nothing happened when I tried it so I just gave up, thinking it was non-functional.
          Ah ken noo!!!!

          Didn’t a similarly distressing thing happen to a Tory MP a short time back, when he clicked on tractor site and something else entirely different sprang up?
          There’s an innocent explanation for everything, if you just have faith in people, I say…

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      1. Interesting radio journey, Nigel.

        I note at the end you mentioned Radio Tirana. I was interviewed for them when I was in Albania.

        I’m not usually nervous about public speaking, but I was that time.

        What were my impressions of the country… ?EEEK

        Don’t say anything bad or Mr Alia will incarcerate you!

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    3. I may have mentioned before that Omo was a secret signal for straying housewives. If they put a box of Omo on their kitchen windowsill, it was a message to their fancy man that ‘Old Man’s Out’.

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  11. I suspect that Pic19 dates from before the Trade Descriptions Act came into force in 1968…
    “Improves on perfect whiteness”????
    By definition, perfect means that it cannot be improved upon…
    Boil with Omo for sure – boil with fury at being patronised – and of course it’s aimed at women, who must be happy at having to do the domestic drudgery…
    There’s lies, there’s damned lies and there’s advertising, for sure.
    Omo? Oh no!
    Still on sale , but you’ll have to go to Australia or South Africa etc. to get it.
    I’ll pass…

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    1. Yes. That truly is impossible. How would you describe this improvement on “perfect” whiteness, Mr Omo?

      Over the years they all kept telling us that they were washing whiter than before… so what were they doing back in the 50s ?

      Grey?

      Didn’t some of them advertise that they had “blue” whiteness?

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      1. Yes, I seem to remember ads for Bluinite Tide. But I also remember my mother using what could be described as a cheese grater and ‘grating’ household soap, usually green or yellow, into the sink for hand washes or straight into the washing machine.

        My granny had a ‘washing machine’ which was not connected to a supply of electricity into which she had to empty pails or large pans of boiling water followed by the soap and a scrubbing board. Women in those days needed powerful hands to wring the excess water out of the washing – although she did also have a hand-cranked wringer – before hanging it up on the kitchen pulley. On one occasion when my grandfather was seriously ill in bed and asleep she spilt a pail of boiling water over her leg, struggled down three flights of stairs and walked to the nearest hospital about half a mile away. They wondered how on earth she managed. When she returned home all strapped up, my grandfather apparently asked, “Where have YOU been?” That was the early 1950’s! There was nothing glamorous about washing in those days.

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        1. All meals cooked from scratch, no vacuum, having to heat water in a kettle, no dish washer, third rate soap powder.

          Carrying the coal in and getting the fire started, taking out the ashes…

          Getting the ironing done without fabric conditioner.

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            1. I guess too, that a lot of men were doing physical work, at least many more than today, so even if their diets were not healthy, they worked a lot of it off.

              And working hours were a good deal longer for men in factories and for women, often in the home.

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  12. The woody; is it based on a Hudson light truck? Just going by the pointy bonnet. Post-war Humbers had a similar look, but the door’s quite tall, hence the truck thoughts.

    Also note the Isetta in the traffic photo; I thought that the van had a foreign registration – and was thus thinking Estafette (Renault) – but I think it’s just the reflection of the light.

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    1. I wondered about the woody in Pic1 as well, Derek.
      Looking at it from the rear it’s hard to tell what it’s built from, such is the amount of body mods that all identifying trim or badging has gone.
      (Maybe get Tris to turn the picture round, so we can see the front?)
      Don’t recognise the swage line running through the front and rear mudguards (or fenders in Americanese) either.
      It’s a handsome thing, for sure. Takes its styling cues from a doo hut….
      I wonder if it’s used to transport Charles Atlas’s ghetto blaster in the pic below.
      You’d carry that “portable” a long way… (“if you’ve got a body like mine”)

      The Isetta in Pic4 blends into the A55-type (I’d guess an Oxford) Farina beside it, making it easy to miss. Camouflage?
      The van certainly has the shape of the Estafette/Alluoette about it but given how little we see of it, we’re into guessing territory here…

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        1. Could be, but the photo’s of a 2-door (steel doors) and the wooden body behind looks a bit hand-made. The truck has taller doors than the car.

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        2. Late forties – ’48? – Ford Super Deluxe by the looks, Tris.
          Good fit, even down to the rear bumper…
          A real do-it-yourself job, for sure.
          All woodies were specials, built by outside companies as the numbers were just too small to justify making them on Detroit production lines.

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