MGOC Durnovaria 1008
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DURNOVARIA 1008 NEWSLETTER MARCH 2017 The Essential Newsletter for the MG Owners Club Dorchester Area 1008 INSIDE THIS MONTH’S NEWSLETTER * Editor’s Notes - Skittle Evening * Not Many People Know That - An extraordinary Woman * Book Ends * Other MGOC Events * Pocket Diary for 2017 * Local Vehicle Services MG Magnettes at the 2016 Athelhampton House Gathering MGOC Durnovaria 1008 - March 2017 Editor’s Notes appy springtime everyone! Spring has sprung Not AWOL - just absent with leave the grass has ris, I wonder where the birdies is - You will know doubt have noticed that there has been no etc. Our front cover image of the three beautiful H newsletter for a few months! This was due to the fact that MG Magnettes reminds us of the season to come when hopefully we will be enjoying some summer sun and some Sarah and I decided to take in some winter sun in southern great runs out and about in our MGs. Spain where we have been for about two months. This had not been the first time we had attempted to migrate Many thanks to our committee and club members involved in planning and volunteering to arrange activities for the south for the worst winter months. The previous time coming months. You should all now have a copy of the we tried was a bit of a disaster - but that’s another story, club’s ‘pocket activity diary’ produced by Paul and as with perhaps for later on. However we enjoyed some great last year’s version, I am sure we will find a most useful and sunny weather and for the most part we were able to eat very handy document to keep in our wallets and purses. outside and bask in a relatively warm 20 to 24 0C - perfect The latest version of which is printed toward the end of this MG weather in fact. We had no rain to speak of and shorts magazine. This document has proved so useful that it is and T-shirts were mostly the dress code during the day, probably no longer necessary to print the diary pages in but the nights were a bit chilly. the newsletter each month. However if there is something We travelled about 1,500 miles in the motorhome and that you would like to promote or worthy of including in the newsletter please contact me. on our return we took in the delights of the Murcia and Andalucia areas and stayed at Granada & the Alhambra, This season our Vice Chairman Peter has had to withdraw Toledo, Burgos and Santander. During all the miles we from his extra duty of club event organiser due to commitments elsewhere and we thank him for some great motored around Spain, we spotted not a single classic car outings in previous years. However his guiding hand is still on the roads, until at the home ferry terminal we spotted a on the tiller for this season and thankfully he has agreed to beautiful Spanish registered white Rolls Royce in the ferry help out in the background as the committee endeavours queue making its way from Madrid to London. to live up to his excellent example over the past years. Understandably I don’t have any club news to report so this month’s newsletter will be a paired down version with a couple of articles you may find of interest. March Club Meeting MARCH CLUB MEETING As you know, The Colliton Club was not available for SKITTLES our usual first Tuesday of the month slot, so our March gathering will be at the The Spitfire Club Crossways for Saturday March 18th 7.30 pm a skittles evening. The Spitfire is a private club, owned solely by the members and operates on the basis of The Spitfire Club making a small profit each year. Mount Skippet Way - Crossways The club was originally founded at Crossways in the 1960s in an old Nissen hut on land adjacent to Old Farm Way. Dorchester DT2 8TP Later the club moved to a new building which had a large function room with dance floor, a lounge bar and kitchen. MGOC 1008 DURNOVARIA CONTACTS It opened as the ‘Tavern Club’ in 1975. The old club had a very large Chairman - Ray Moore car park and after many months T: 01305 268105 E: [email protected] of negotiations with Taylor Vice Chairman - Peter Elliott Wimpy and the local planning T: 01258 451763 E: [email protected] department, a scheme was Treasurer & Secretary - Paul Storey agreed to build a new club T: 01305 848656 E: [email protected] building which was completed in March 2012. The old car Charity Organiser and Assistant Secretary - Hilary Storey park was developed and is now T: 01305 848656 E: [email protected] the site of the Magnolia Mews NewsletterProduction housing development. Mike Benton - T: 01929 554250 E: [email protected] Alan Cooper T: 07815 305619 E: [email protected] 2 MGOC Durnovaria 1008 - March 2017 Such advice might be expected were the writer in the Wild This is the first (it could be the last) West of the United States, but Levitt was an English lady of a series of occasional articles of privileged background, living a ‘bachelor-girl’ life with about relatively interesting stuff friends and two servants in the West End of London. The that you may wish to bring up at your next dinner party words of wisdom are contained in Levitt’s 1909 book, The when the conversation goes Woman and the Car: A “Chatty Little Handbook for All quiet. The series entitled; Women Who Motor or Who Want to Motor”. ‘Not Many People Know While Levitt did not invent the glove box – credit for That’ will probably, but not necessarily explore that is given by some automotive historians to the auto some lesser know facts manufacturer Packard, in 1900 – she certainly made good about motoring or motoring use of it. Her description, too, of the “little drawer,” usually personalities. located underneath the seat, and the “little flap pocket” gives a good sense of the ways in which manufacturers of the time sought to provide storage space for the occupants of their vehicles. Why is a glove box called a In 1902, for example, an Oldsmobile had a leather satchel with four buckles attached to the dashboard, while the 1903 glove box? Stevens-Duryea had a box built into the dash, opening on The story of an extraordinary woman top instead of in front, with a decorative iron rail on the lid. One pioneering English driver may not have invented Other automakers included baskets, hampers and trunks the glove compartment, but she certainly put it to for storage. good use. What might you expect to find in the glove By the 1930s, glove boxes, also known as glove compartment of the ‘fastest girl on Earth’? According compartments, had become standard equipment on to the extraordinary holder of that title in 1905, Dorothy most cars. But why, out of all the items that can be stored Levitt, there should be a mirror for personal use, but also there – including mirrors and guns – did “glove” became “to occasionally hold up to see what is behind you” and the enduring item associated with such a compartment? “a small revolver.” There are one main and three minor schools of thought “The mirror should be fairly large to be really useful and it on this. The most convincing is that the earliest cars is better to have one with a handle. were open-topped and decidedly Just before starting, take the glass “I have an automatic Colt cold to drive, especially in winter. out of the little drawer and put it into Even later, when enclosed bodies and find it very easy to handle as the little flap pocket of the car,” she became widely available, cars wrote – anticipating the addition of a there is practically no recoil - a great lacked any form of heating until well rearview mirror from manufacturers consideration to a woman” into the 1930s. A driving gauntlet, by about five years. therefore, often fleece lined, was “If you are going to drive alone in the highways and most welcome on chilly days. As a driving essential, it was byways it might be advisable to carry a small revolver. helpful to have a dedicated storage compartment so they I have an automatic Colt and find it very easy to handle were always available with the vehicle. as there is practically no recoil – a great consideration Another explanation is that gloves were essential items to a woman,” she added helpfully. (try that today! - Ed). because they helped to protect the driver against oil and dust in what was potentially a very dirty business. The most prosaic account is that a leather glove improved grip on slippery wooden steering wheels that, in the days long before power steering was invented, required considerable force to turn. Showing that little changes, some sources would have it that gloves were adopted as fashion statements at a time when cars were expensive and seen as status symbols. This might not be that far-fetched; certainly, Dorothy Levitt brought a sense of style to the early motoring scene. Her own preference was for gloves made of “good soft kid,” advising other aspiring female motorists “You will find room for these gloves in the little drawer under the seat of Dorothy Levitt the car.” Continued on next page MGOC Durnovaria 1008 - March 2017 Record-breaker An attractive young woman, Levitt worked in the typing pool of Napier & Sons, a car manufacturer and dealership in Lambeth, London.