Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Sandy and Carol’s Wedding Photos

Sandy and Carol

Carol’s Parents

British people tend to be prejudicial and snobs. I only met Carol’s parents on one occasion. Her father was a blonde man in his forties; he was a car mechanic – I think he owned a small business. But he was obviously a ‘hands-on’ man – as was evident from his oil-stained gnarled fingers. Her mother was dark, and almost ‘gypsy-like’. I was usually impressed by car mechanics, as I was greatly interested in cars. Perhaps I can blame it on my parents – they weren’t impressed by ‘car mechanics’, although my Uncle Gavin was a car mechanic, whose garage was financed by a loan from my parents (no documentation – lost). 

I remember Carol’s father turning up in an Isabella Borgward (at our house in Mountnessing Road). I chatted with him for a while; he was a real ‘Cockney Southender’, as I remember he had a broad accent. Being a cheeky teenager, I asked him why he was driving around in such a quirky car. Borgwards were a rare sight in Britain. Not put off by my teenage criticism – he informed me that the Borgward was a brilliant piece of German engineering. Being an idiot I didn’t really accept this argument. It was only when I got older that I was able to rid myself of such ‘Jeremy Clarkson-like’ chauvinist prejudices. The Isabella Borgward, although not as pretty as the Alvis, was certainly a better piece of engineering. In hindsight, the Borgward was also a ‘pretty’ car. Let’s face it – when I was a teenager I was just a Billericay dickie – a lower middle class snob!

Sexy Carol

The interesting thing about the ‘sexy Carol’ photo is that she is lounging across the rear-end of my mother’s white Austin 1100, showing quite a bit of leg. The first photo in this series shows a Ford Anglia with an L-plate. In other words, this was the car in which my mother learnt to drive. That is to say, she had to wait until she had given birth to five sons and brought them up, before she could embark on her own project of becoming an ‘independent woman’; she learned to drive and became a qualified teacher at Brentwood Teacher’s College. 

An irony here is that women often have an intuitive better understanding of cars than men. Thus, my father preferred big, conservative saloons, such as his Wolseley 12, and his Humber Hawk; whereas, my mother preferred small practical cars such as the Ford Anglia and the Austin 1100.