Dellow Events for 2006
DELLOWS IN THE SOUTH WEST!
Alan Selwood and John Green invite you to join them in a gathering of Dellow enthusiasts on Saturday 21st October 2006 in Glorious Somerset. We plan to gather at The Three Horse Shoes, Langley Marsh, at 12.00 noon for lunch and will depart at 2.15pm for a short tour ( 50 miles approx ) of the West Somerset and Exmoor area.
On Saturday evening, Alan has arranged a superb meal at the Three Horse Shoes at Langley Marsh near Wiveliscombe (landlord is a Dellow and MG owner). Followed by a talk by Bruce Goddard, Business development Director of the MSA (Motor Sports Association)
On Sunday 22nd if you are not competing there will be an opportunity to marshal/spectate on the Minehead Motor Club Exmoor Clouds Classic Trial. Details of the route and vantage points will be available on Saturday evening. If you would like to marshal on Sunday please contact Alan Selwood a week or so before the event. The event is finishing at Raleghs Cross Inn (Map ref OS181 039343) where there will be another social opportunity with competitors and a bar to lean on.
A list of places providing B&B accommodation locally is available on
http://www.wiveliscombe.com/business_directory/accommodation
TIMETABLE
12.:00 noon Lunch at The Three Horse Shoes, Langley Marsh
7:00 to 7:30pm Meet at The Three Horse Shoes, Langley Marsh for dinner (Map ref O/S 181 071291)
Due to space limitations, we need reservations by post , by phone to Alan Selwood or by e-mail to davehaley@btinternet.com . This is a really informal and friendly event and has proved to be very popular in the past so send off your reply now and reserve your table place.
See the report on last year's event below:
Previous Events
DELLOW
60th
ANNIVERSARY
This event held with the welcome of the Midlands Automobile Club at Shelsley Walsh Hill Climb on 3rd & 4th June to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the inauguration of Dellow Motors in 1946, an event which led to the decision in 1949 to commence production of the agile and pretty car which we now know as the Mk1 Dellow.
This event was organised and managed by Jeremy Nightingale assisted by his wife Melodie, David Bache and John Spencer. The arrangements were complicated by the addition to the events of a film crew who generally got in the way on the Sunday. But no doubt when we see the results they will be forgiven.
The whole weekend was blessed with the most unusually hot and sunny weather with no less than 26 cars attending over the weekend. This approaches the number attending the 1982 event at Stone Manor which some of us older and greyer club members remember.
Saturday started off well with a good number of cars and visitors throughout the day, including Malcolm Delingpole, Angela Wall (Nee Lowe), Tony Fletcher and Jon Bates, all related to the original Dellow people.
Surprises of the day were Mike Sadler-Brookes and the MkVl Dellow, albeit in a poor state needing some T.L.C. and then Peter Seabrook Harris with CAB 282, these representing as it were the beginnings and the end of the Dellow name.
Just after the lunch break, Jeremy had organised with the MAC for a Dellow to be taken up the hill by Tony Marsh, six times World Hill Climb Champion who cut his motoring teeth in a Dellow. For the run, he took as passenger, Ron Lowe’s Daughter, Angela Wall who said it was always her ambition as a child to hitch a lift down the hill as some of the boys did with their dads as the cars returned to the paddocks but she had never achieved it, Now she had the chance to go up as well as down in a Dellow.
On Saturday evening thanks especially to Melodie Nightingale we sat down to a splendid buffet meal in the Members tent, a short but very steep walk up the hill and for the first time that day felt cool under the trees.
Sunday dawned bright and sunny and those with cars and some without assembled at the Hundred House for coffee and biscuits. This was the start of the scenic run, painstakingly devised, planned and tested by John Spencer amid great secrecy and without foreknowledge that the film crew were going to descend, requisition a car, and leapfrog from point to point throughout the route. After some sorting of seats and the affixing of a travelling camera to Mark Hayward’s car we set off at 1 minute intervals and were treated to 30 miles of some of the most glorious countryside views, some of the narrowest lanes and some of the most agricultural smells in the country. Some of us got wet, lost and confused but all 18 cars eventually made it to Shelsley where we all agreed that it was the most splendid of scenic runs.
The rest of the day was spent watching the Hill, leaning over the cars, complaining about the price of petrol, resolving to get that car languishing in Fife going. Well if Peter Seabrook Harris can do it……
Then it was Tony Marsh in a Dellow again, this time in John Arrowsmith’s nicely restored Mk2 with Malcolm Delingpole as passenger.
After concerted efforts and coaxing, Peter Seabrook Harris managed to fire up CAB 282 for the first time in 40 years and with the car needing just a few finishing touches, it should shortly be back on the road again. Previous owner Mike Lawrence was on hand to offer advice
Sadly, too soon, it was all over, thankyou to all who attended, those who brought their cars but especially Jeremy and Melodie Nightingale, John Spencer and David Bache.
Oh and the film crew! They were filming for a program to go out in the midlands called Heart of the Country some time around October / November. We hope to get copies somehow. But keep a watch on the TV schedules if you live in the midlands.
visit www.kingfishertv.co.uk where details of the programmes are listed.
A gathering of Dellow enthusiasts took place on Saturday 15th October 2005.
Another enjoyable weekend
very professionally organised by Alan Selwood and John Green in the West at
Wiveliscombe started with lunch on Saturday 15th October at the Three
Horse Shoes in Langley Marsh.
There were five glorious
Mk1s in attendance David Bache and Jeremy Nightingale in David’s successfully
campaigned OUB909 entered for the Exmoor Clouds Classic Trial on the Sunday,
John Hopkins very nice supercharged NRL255, David Haley’s well known yellow
car LYT770. John Green and his lovely LEL754. This is the car that John has
driven in the Spanish Pyrenees and Cape to Cape; still side-valve and reliable.
Last Dellow but not least was Alan Selwood’s recently painted and polished
FPV919 along with Duncan Gilbert’s Gilbern and Martin in his Marlin roadster.
Also on display were two of John Hopkins (landlord) fabulous vintage MGs.
On Saturday afternoon
John Green had planned a scenic route around Exmoor and surrounding countryside.
It was three hours of the most beautiful countryside enjoyed by all.
Lots of first gear changes and fading brakes as incredible gradients were
climbed and descended in flurries of pheasants. A compulsory stop (near a
convenient hedge!) was included to see the stags.
The sun shone all the weekend and it was warm and really delightful.
In the evening a dinner had been arranged at the Three Horseshoes and
about twenty of us including Jim Harvey, Terry and Jenny Vowles and Richard and Ros Shirley
sat down to enjoy a wonderful meal and an interesting chat and slide show from
John Green with cars on West Country Trials.
Alan had prepared
spectator guides for the Exmoor Clouds trial on the Sunday. But, our intrepid
reporter was feeling a bit poorly on Sunday morning – no, not the wine - and
headed for home where he felt really, really poorly – but that is another
story!
Congratulations and thanks go to Alan Selwood and John Green for all their planning and organisation for the event.
Now, not a lot of people know this, but the lads in the West meet at the Three Horse Shoes in Langley Marsh on the second Tuesday evening of each month along with enthusiasts for other makes. Why not pay them a visit, you will be warmly welcomed.
“Dellows in the West”
A weekend of fun, on the road, in the mud and in the pub!
A personal account from David & Sheila Haley, who cheated by going in their Land Rover.
David’s excuse? “to save the RAC the inconvenience of taking him home again!”
The weekend went
something like this:
Friday 18th February
After a pleasant drive down from Pewsey, we arrived at The Three Horseshoes In Langley Marsh near Wiveliscombe. Landlord, John Hopkins and his wife Marella run a very welcoming pub and restaurant with excellent food, beer and very comfortable accommodation close by.
We were staying at the pub and on a cold February afternoon we were shown into our cottage with roaring log fire – what a welcome!
John is also a Dellow owner and Register Member and has more than a passing interest in MMM MGs,
We shared a table for dinner with Stalwart John Green and Paul, his passenger for Saturday’s Exmoor Fringe trial. Paul had driven all the way from Cambridge to take part.
Saturday 19th February
The event for this day was the Exmoor Fringe Trial which is run by the Vintage Sports Car Club and is for vintage cars (pre 1930) and certain post vintage thoroughbreds but sadly not Dellows. John Green had entered in his vintage Austin Seven in an entry of some 100 cars of which Austin Sevens made up more than half the entry.
John Green had entered the trial in his Austin Seven (photo taken on the 2004 Lands End).
Sheila and I were suffering from various stages of influenza and found it difficult to get going so we were late for the start of the trial and thus spent the day exploring Exmoor and the North Devon Coast whilst seeing various vintage cars to-ing and fro-ing
Saturday Evening
A splendid dinner put on by our hosts John and Marella Hopkins, Attended by quite a number of car enthusiasts and the following Dellow Brigade:
Stuart & Margaret Turner & their companion Bruce Goddard, Alan & Trina Selwood, John Green, Peter & Tina Seabrook Harris, David & Sheila Haley, Nick & Angela Woollett, who drove down from Tunbridge Wells in their distinctive silver Mk 1 Dellow MTT667 Duncan Gilbert & Ann, Richard Shirley and his wife who came with their Mk2 JWP888.
A last minute problem prevented our Chairman, Mark Hayward and his wife, Debbie from joining us. Paul Catley is having problems with a detached retina and was unable to make the journey
Following the meal, we were entertained by Stuart Turner who talked on his life in Motor Sport. I am sure we only had a taster in the time available but really interesting and amusing, Stuart had us rocking in our seats.
Sunday 20th February
The Patrick Adams Tour of Exmoor is again a VSCC event although they had invited entries from other enthusiasts in their Classics and so a gaggle of Dellows gathered in the car park of the Anchor Inn at Exebridge on a fine sunny but extremely cold Sunday morning, John Green was in his Dellow today LEL 754, Dick Shirley in JWP 888, Mark & Debbie Hayward after a bit of navigational trouble this weekend in EVG 28, Alan Selwood with Bruce Goddard in FPV 919 with its splendid new blue livery.
A visitor to the start was Martin Ray, a previous owner of JWP888 who was delighted to see his old car in action and after half an hour of nostalgia wished he’d never parted with it.
Sheila and I waited to see the cars off and then headed off home, resolving that next year we would definitely be in a Dellow and to hell with the RAC!
A resounding success was the summing up for the weekend with votes of thanks to Alan Selwood and John Green for their splendid organisation. I hope that we can repeat this event next year and hopefully extend the format to other events around the country.
Shelsley Walsh 2004
Another sun drenched weekend for Dellow Owners at Shelsley Walsh with 17+ cars on display over the weekend. Those who could turn away from the fantastic display of Dellows would have been able to see the course record broken by the amazing Adam Fleetwood and a phenominal performance by our own Hero, Tony Marsh, still doing it after 50 years!
Splendid arrangements by Jeremy Nightingale and his small "team" of helpers led to a most enjoyable weekend with a social noggin on the Saturday Evening, and a simple scenic run on Sunday morning where most drivers got hopelessly lost in the 5 mile run to Shelsley in spite of copious navigational notes provided by our host.
Fishponds House 2004
The Dellow Register was blessed with fantastic weather in contrast to the rain at this event last year. Fishponds House is the most fantastic place for a car club meeting with its extensive grounds, space for trailers, Motel style parking but Country Hotel welcome.
This event should have been better attended as only five Dellows made it down West. Other Members travelled in moderns and swelled the number at a superb Dinner on Saturday night to twenty.
On Sunday peter Mountain travelled down from Buckinghamshire in his Morgan, stayed long enough for a photograph and then set off home. - beat that!
Shelsley Walsh 2003
The Dellow Register enthusiastically attended this event on Practice Day, Saturday 7th June 2003 in glorious surroundings and perfect weather. There were 17 dellows on display and lots of visitors to our parking area including Malcolm Delingpole and family, Margery Evans and Pauline Waldron, two stalwart campaigners from the 50s
The parking area, difficult to get a good photograph at this angle.
Some of the 17 Dellows on display.
2003 Dellow Spring Meeting in the Blackdown Hills.
Dellow Register members, mostly from the West and South gathered at Fishponds House in Devon on the weekend of the 25th/26th April with 9 cars at the event.
The weather was changeable and heavy rain on Saturday curtailed outside activities. On Sunday, some low key driving tests were held at the Famous Field. The Neville Heath Trophy was won by Jim Mountain who outclassed his Father in their recently refurbished Mk1
Below are snaps of 8 of the 9 cars present.
David Haley suffered the ignominy of being towed home after a major head gasket failure on the way home. He had hoped to keep this under wraps but the arrival of Nick Woollett and Geoff May on the scene put paid to that, so here is the event in glorious colour!
within 40 minutes from stopping we were loaded up by friendly rescue man Rob Cruickshank with matching tow truck and on our way. We got home to Pewsey probably quicker than under our own power. Rob had never heard of let alone seen a Dellow before but within minutes of arrival there were two when Nick Woollett arrived.
Investigation later showed that a new FSOC copper/asbestos gasket had cracked giving a leak path from cylinder 1 to the outside world.