I sincerely hope that I haven’t caused offence to anyone with my previous comments.
I have never personally been involved in any historic vehicle events, although, like many others I’ve spent a fair percentage of my working life earning a living driving historic vehicles up and down the country.
Like most drivers, I never enjoyed the luxury of being able to choose what vehicle I drove, it was merely a case of working with what I was given, and it would most probably have been in the late 70s, or early 80s, when the second hand foreign marques began to become more widely available that things finally started to improve, and even then, you could still find yourself being lumbered with a day cabbed, Gardner powered S39 Foden.
Ironically, I’d pay to have a go in one now, so I can see the attraction of these events.
Not to stray too far from the Shap theme though; back in the late 60s, I could often be found grinding up from Kendal in an ancient Mammoth Major eight legger tipper loaded with 14 tons of loose sugar from Sankey at Earlestown, destined for a refinery at Port Glasgow, returning the following day loaded with scrap metal from Leith docks heading for Birmingham.
It never dawned on me at that time what fun I was having, as even then, this ancient motor, capable of 37mph on a good day, could have quite legitimately been considered to have been a worthy candidate for the Leyland museum.
But speaking of having a fun day out Chris, quite a number of years ago, when the UKIP party was still in its relative infancy, I was called upon to drive one of their two promotion vehicles round my local area FOC during the run up to the local elections. I have no affiliation with either UKIP or any other political group incidentally, I just happened to be " resting " temporarily between jobs at the time.
The vehicle in question was an old AEC open topped double decker bus, the other vehicle being a Dennis fire engine. My remit was to go anywhere I wished within the area, blasting out Acker Bilk from speakers connected to an equally geriatric tape deck.
Well, what a brilliant time I had driving around Wigan wearing my fedora hat. Waiting aeons for the engine revs to die down before slipping the crash box into the next cog. Standing up in the half-cab to pull the beast round from Wallgate down into Library st, ( or it could have been King st back then , I forget, as they’re constantly buggering about with the one way system around here ), to the great amusement of the local bus drivers.
Now it may sound as though I’m being sarcastic, but far from it. I really enjoyed it, and it instantly transported me back to my early driving days. In fact, if I was invited to do it again tomorrow, I’d be there like a shot.
I’m not overly certain that I’d want to do it day in, day out, constantly, for weeks and years on end though, as a means of paying the bills.