Just two members made their way across England for the start in Exeter,

Paul and myself in GKE 176D and Phil and Lynn Phillips in their Scimitar –

like us they completed the full route. The weather was glorious, very sunny

and we were lucky in that it stayed like that for all except one morning in

Edinburgh.

​

On Friday 20th June we were joined by Tony and Lesley Creed in WPV 916A.

They led us round Exeter and up the old A30 road onto the A303. They

returned home and we carried on to Trowbridge for lunch where we met Jim

and Jenny Spence in SNV 173G and Robin Millard with pictures of his

project. Final stop of the day was at Malmesbury Garden centre with John

Williams in DSV 726, thanks to John for waiting, we were very late as there

had been a bad accident on the A350 near Chippenham. This was the only

traffic we really got stuck until crossing the Dartford Bridge on the way home,

and that is always bad!

​

Our overnight stop was in the beautiful Cotswold town of Stow-in-the-Wold,

the Gentry looked absolutely super parked outside the B&B built of that

yellow Cotswold stone.

​

On Saturday we headed up towards Meriden, the centre of England for a

coffee stop. En route we collected Margaret and Bob Mitchell-King and their

sons in OIL 5045 and Adrian and Emma Clough with their two children in

their Skoda – Adrian is still restoring his Gentry. Cliff and Gill Wakelin in

XWD 772 joined us at Meriden and led us on a very pretty route towards

Tamworth where we could pick up the A38.

​

Jim Walker and his son Peter in BWA 383G collected us off the A38 and led

us to the Crich Tramway museum, well worth a visit, as classics we get to

park inside the museum. Bob Chequer and Jess the dog joined in JUF 377E

later, having driven directly from Kent that morning. We spent the remainder

of the day at Crich, before joining Ken at Belper the following morning.

I would also like to mention Mel and Dawn Dowson in 451 XKL who came to

meet us in Kilburn on our way home on Wednesday 25th June.

Thanks to everyone who turned out, for their company and local knowledge,

it was an excellent experience and I would definitely do it again, possibly a

slightly shorter run next time.

Diane Sutton

 

On the 22nd June 2 cars, myself and Paul & Diane Sutton took part in the

first part of the local TSSC run from Belper and, at their lunch stop, we were

joined by Phil & Lynn Philips and Jim Walker.

​

Then, at our scheduled stop (the Grouse near Glossop), we were joined by

Bob Chequer and Bill & Diane Singleton, so now we had 6 cars in total.

Bill & Diane led us on the route around Manchester and up to Howarth,

while Jim took a scenic route back home.

​

The rest of us went on to Kettlewell where we stayed the night having been

joined there by Dave Sparling.

​

The next day we went over the tops to Hawes, Middleton-in-Teesdale and

Stanhope where we found Ian Goodfellow & Fiona waiting for us in their

aero screen equipped Gentry. They led the way to our lunch stop at

Chollerford and then to KielderWater (a superb detour suggested by Dave).

Again 6 cars there, and eventually nine in total had joined for different parts

of the northern section of the run .

​

Ian and Fiona left us there and the rest of the cars continued on to the

Melrose area for the night's stop.

​

The next day was on to Edinburgh where we were joined by Rob Davey who

led the way to South Queensferry  and across the Forth Road Bridge to North Queensferry and a final lunch at the Albert Hotel.

Ken Craghill