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Croft PrtrtWilliam Heaney, Part XI.

Despite the prompt two weeks ago from “mine hosts” here at in2motorsports to get on with this and in to the ’70s, here’s a final look back to some of the rare and unusual vehicles that visited our house and the town in the ’50s and 60’s.
Lodgers and Visitors
Some time in the mid-50’s one of our Australian cousins and a couple of her pals came over to do a European Tour and visit her mum’s birthplace, brothers and sisters. Whether they shipped it with them or bought it here we’re not sure now, but they had a lovely Ford Woody ‘Shooting Brake’. My sister remembers taking them for days out to Donegal, Giants Causeway and other local interesting places. However, there was one rather controversial visit to our eldest Aunt, who was the self-styled matriarch of the family and whose standards and values remained very much in the Victorian era where she was born. Our father related that the Aunt May was apparently horrified that these girls, most inappropriately dressed in bright blouses and shorts showing bare arms and legs, were travelling without the safety of a male escort or two. To make matters worse they had nick-named the Woody – Jezebel. This biblical princess, who reportedly dressed in lavish clothes AND wore make-up, was the absolute antithesis of Aunt May resulting in the latter writing a strongly worded letter to her younger sister in Australia expressing disappointment as to how one of her nieces had been ‘brought up’.

11 Ford Woody

My mother ran several ventures alongside her charity work. You’ve read about the caravans and in the 60’s they bought two small terrace houses, in nearby Patrick Street, that were rented out. She ran our home as a B&B and boarding house, with at least one permanent lodger. A regular customer was a travelling salesman from Belfast called Jack Larmour. I don’t remember what he drove initially, but in around 1960 he turned up with a strange new car – a Skoda Octavia that caused quite a bit of interest, in the town. From the mid-50s, Jack would bring me a Dinky toy every Christmas and that started me on a collection that would grow to over 200. Hindsight tells me I was foolish to sell them in 1971 for £100, to get the balance required to buy the Anglia, because I’ve seen some of the models now fetch several hundred pounds on their own, on TV Auction Programmes.

11 Skoda

We also had regular groups of engineering and technical types who were were working on local projects. For example, there was a group of five who installed the organ in the new Presbyterian Church on the Derry Road and a pair who installed the gym equipment in the new Secondary School (Now Strabane Academy). Another pair were Post Office engineers both called George, doing an upgrade on the Telephone Exchange. They were known to us as Big George and Wee George because the former was about six foot three or four and the latter only about five foot six. They drove a couple of very distinctive cars, a little Sprite coupe and an imposing Riley Pathfinder. It was a source of constant amusement to watch them leave for work of a morning. Contrary to expectation, Big George (Whose surname I think was Burdus) would thread himself into the Sprite and Wee George would disappear in to the Pathfinder. Only a lot later would I discover that the Sprite 505 BZ had previously been owned by NI motorsport legend Adrian Boyd and was actually a Speedwell Special that has since been restored and is now owned by Adrian’s brother-in-law Mike Wylie.

11 505 BZ n Riley

A rather more rowdy bunch were the employees of the J. L. EVE company, who were erecting the poles and pylons for the mains electricity supply from the new Coolkeeragh Power Station. A network of five or six of these lines fanned out across and along the Sperrins, bringing electricity to rural communities and hamlets, as well as a more reliable supply to the towns. Our latterday navvies were working on the western lines that would run along above Donemana, Plumbridge and Newtownstewart, then out through the Glenelly and Clougher valleys. We had between eight and twelve staying for about six weeks, taking up the whole top floor of the house, although I think there were up to 30 in this crew billeted in a number of boarding houses around the town bringing an economic boost to the area, especially the pubs.
Along with two M3 Half-Tracks, as mentioned a couple of weeks ago, they used a fleet of ex-military GMC 4×4 and 6×6 trucks. The half-tracks mostly stayed out on the hillsides but the trucks would take up about a quarter of the parking on the Bowling Green square on evenings and at weekends. Whilst hugely tempting for us kids to play on, these were in full view of the Police Station and therefore we were subject to the wrath, verbal you understand, of the local duty Sergeant.

11 GMC's

Continuing with the American theme, our local dance hall ‘The Palladrome’ was a popular haunt of servicemen from the US Navy Communications Station at Clooney on the outskirts of Derry. After the Lisahally port had closed at the end of WW2, the communications station remained in operation right up to the late 70’s. This meant that there was always a fair selection of American heavy motoring metal to be seen around the North-West. Servicemen who were on longer tours were allowed to import their own cars, duty free, and some of these were regular visitors to the ‘hot spots’ in Strabane. Various station wagons seemed most popular, but fairly common amongst the cars in the late 50’s and early 60’s were Chevrolet Bel-Air convertibles or saloons and one of these convertibles was a regular at the Palladrome. Whilst I don’t recall any Cadillacs, there were a couple of Chevrolet Impalas which were akin to small road-going aircraft carriers. When the station finally closed, the access road to the aerial array on Benbradagh mountain above Dungiven became the venue for a Northern Ireland Hillclimb Championship event of the same name.

11 Chevys 1

11 Chevys

More from William, same time next week.