A Report by Neil Cairns on the event organised at the Hertitage Motor Museum Gaydon on May 28th.
All photographs coyright Neil Cairns.
Saturday the 28th May 2011 was the celebration of the Centenary of Gerald Palmer’s birthday. It was held at the Gaydon Motor Museum and was the biggest collection I have ever seen of MG Z Magnettes and Jowett Javelins, two of Gerald’s designs.
The first photo is of the Centenary Time Line with the Scammell lorry first and ‘Little Gem’ (The YB , MDF 630, bequeathed to the MG Car Club ) behind; Gerald served his apprenticeship with Scammell.
The only down side was the cold, windy weather. There were six Y Types attending, Little Gem from Kimber House, Jerry’s YT, Derek’s 1800cc YB, Reg’s tuned YB, my own bog-standard YB and yet another YB of Len Shaw (HMO909) on display inside the building.
Trevor Jones had driven Little Gem up from Abingdon and was impressed by its performance though it naturally fell well below his own ZB. Trevor once owned a YA (UMG301, sold to a chap visiting the UK from the USA) so was aware of driving such an old car.
There were lectures about Gerald Palmer given by Chris Balfour who wrote Gerald’s Auto-Biography, alas one listener kept interrupting his talk with irrelevant questions until one person had had enough and bellowed out that we were there to listen to Chris and not him! There were also quite a number of mobile phones ringing in peoples pockets, (I find this particularly rude when it is so easy to switch them off).
The arrival of Jerry Birkbeck’s bright red YT improved the display as virtually all the Jowetts and Magnettes were of such sober and dull colours.
The Javelin’s engine is quite an interesting installation being a flat opposed four cylinder with the longest push-rods I have ever seen.
The Gaydon shop is now only a shadow of its past glory, it contained very little of interest to me; there was no longer the extensive ‘Motoring Book’ display and only about six DVDs but at least the Cafe was not a rip-off as many museums are.
Neil Cairns.