Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Classical Cars as Social Status Markers

I talked about how Mr. Ramsey of the Risley Church congregation drove a V8 Ford Pilot in “Cars, Mountain Bikes, and Wars”. Such a model pretty exclusive and the only one of its kind in the village. In the 1950s and 1960s, especially in a small village such as Culcheth, classic cars were important as social-status markers. Your social class could be determined by what kind of car your dad drove (if he had a car). The novels and the films of the period also reflected this.

Post-war British society was characterized by a ‘levelling out’ of society. It was evident from then Prime minister Macmillan’s “You’ve never had it so good,”²⁴³ speech then. It was also reinforced by the introduction of the welfare state and increased prosperity.

On the other hand, there were still sections of the working classes that weren’t happy remaining in their own class, and wanted to move socially upwards. At least, this is depicted in the novel and film Room at the Top. Joe Lampton was not only interested in the upper class girl Susan, but also the car she drives together with her upper class suitor Jack Wales. The car was a 1940s V12 Lagonda.²⁴⁴

Working Class Hero

Similarly, in the whole of Culcheth, there was only one large Jaguar as far as I can remember – a MK VII Jaguar driven by a Mr. Hamilton. He was one of the ‘upper class’ gents in the village, with a ‘toff-like’ moustache. Whenever he drove past, everybody would look up — at least us kids. He could very well have had the role as the father of Jack Wales, at least in his appearance.

This ‘car-fetishism’ would reach a peak in the 1960s; we were introduced to the Aston Martins of James Bond, the Austin Mini E-types owned by stars, and not to mention Rolls Royces. These were all what the working or middle class pop stars bought to show they had made it ‘to the top’.

John Lennon criticized this socially mobile “I’m all right Jack” aspect of the new consumer society in his song “Working Class Hero” with the line “there’s Room at the Top (…) but you must learn how to smile as you kill.”²⁴⁵ However, he didn’t seem to heed the admonishments of his own song, as he was also socially mobile towards ‘the top’, driving around in a Rolls Royce painted in psychedelic colours.

Anti-America

During the post-war period, there was an anti-American feeling in Britain along the lines of ‘Yanks are swanks’. The Yanks had bigger and swankier cars; American soldiers would also give us kids chewing gum for free. The US had established air bases in Britain since 1942, but were still ‘occupying’ Britain with their air bases in the 1950s. Of course, this ‘anti-American’ feeling never reached the heights of the Cuba Crisis or the protests against the American invasion of Vietnam. It was more along the lines of mild parody, such as in Tony Hancock’s “The Americans Hit Town”.²⁴⁶

American popular culture was viewed by many as being ‘vulgar’. The Americans were impressed by anything that was ‘bigger’, ‘faster’, ‘flashier’, and so on. This was most clearly visible in the post-war American automobile production that produced big ‘flashy’ cars with lots of chrome and exaggerated ‘tail fins’. Some of the British-American cars, such as Vauxhall, parodied their larger brothers across the Atlantic, but in a smaller format.

Car Comparisons

This British prejudice against the Americans seemed to be confirmed in my child’s mind by the fact that American cars, or rather, British-American cars such as Ford and Vauxhall, would always show exaggerated maximum speeds on their speedometers.

As kids, we would always peek through the front side windows of cars so as to examine their speedometers. “How fast does your dad’s car go?” we would ask each other. If a car’s speedometer was calibrated to show a maximum speed of 90 mph, we believed the car could do 90 mph! Our Wolseley 12 was an honest British car. Its speedometer was calibrated to show a maximum speed of 70 mph; it could do 70 mph, although it took a long time to reach this speed! 

Ford Pickup

I remember farmer Higgins had an old Ford pickup. It had a speedometer calibrated to show a maximum speed of 90 mph. Even as an 11 yr. old, I realised this must be an exaggeration. Of course, Jaguars had speedometers calibrated at 120 and 140 mph, which put them into some exotic world of the imagination. On the other hand, British family cars of the day were often not capable of doing much more than 60-70 mph. 

Bedford Dormobile

Our neighbours, the Babcocks, at 24 Hob Hey Lane, had an old pre-war Ford Eight. My friend Billy Babcock used to talk about it in affectionate terms, probably aping his father. They then bought a Bedford Dormobile painted in a ghastly two-tone chocolate and cream colour scheme.

Ford Poplar

The Procks, who lived next door to the Babcocks, had a Ford Poplar, which seemed to suit their personality. It was a car for the petty ambitious lower-middle class. It seemed to have a priggish face like the faces of their owners. 

According to my brother Alistair, Geoffrey Prock’s father was the son of Prock of the large firm Prock and Gamble; although Geoffrey’s father worked for the Prudential Insurance Company. Alistair said he had met Geoffrey Prock (whom he called ‘Prick-Prock’)²⁴⁷ in Oxford Street many years later. He happened to be doing some electrical work for the company Prock worked for. At that time, Prock then held some high position in his grandfather’s company! This class difference between Alistair and people like Prock was further reinforced in his mind when he was refused admittance to cafes and fast food restaurants in central London when he was wearing his working clothes!

²⁴³ 1957: Britons ‘have never had it so good’The British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, has made an optimistic speech telling fellow Conservatives that “most of our people have never had it so good”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3728000/3728225.stm Accessed: 10 October 2021.

²⁴⁴  Harkness, Ian. Look Back on Anger: A Study of the Drama and Fiction of the ”Angry Young Men”, and the ”New Wave” Film Adaptations of these Texts. Master’s thesis, Oslo University, 1995.

²⁴⁵ Working Class Hero
As soon as you’re born, they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
(…)
There’s room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be.

²⁴⁶ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yt6y5sb9kk Accessed 10 October 2021. Radio series 1958.

²⁴⁷ I can’t divulge the reason for the nickname here obviously.