Jolly Jeeper

I volunteered for the Army on my birthday They draft the white trash first,'round here anyway I done two tours of duty in Vietnam And I came home with a brand new plan I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico I plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road And now the D.E.A.'s got a chopper in the air I wake up screaming like I'm back over there I learned a thing or two from ol' Charlie don't you know You better stay away from Copperhead Road Steve Earle

The Iraq War is mentioned frequently on this site, the story I tried to draw people's attention to was more of a medical story about one hero's struggle to recover from PTSD and the drink/drugs/divorce scenarios that were part of it - it's a common tale from Vietnam, The Falklands and many more conflicts. It's a human tale - nothing more. Seeing this site has published three articles and many posts and pictures of mine the moderators should know that I am a great supporter of this site... JC

Okay then - here's the gist of it without publishing the precious PM. It has been suggested that an account of PTSD from the Iraq War has no content relevant to this forum JC

I'm just curious to know why a link to an account of PTSD from the Iraq war can be considered by the moderator to be as follows; MOD Edit... PM's are just that..PRIVATE... they are not to be published on the Forum... when Other Chatter is meant to be about other subjects - any thoughts anyone? JC

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2212694,00.html#article_continue I think everyone (especially the dressers up) should read this...

Thanks R Cubed. I remember the Scammell going over at Bovvy that's mention in the other thread. It turned up a couple of years ago on 'You've been framed' too! Will definitely make the effort to be at 2008 HVT if there is one... JC

Apologies if there's a thread elsewhere about this. Just been lent a copy of the AWDC magazine All Wheel Driver (dec07/Jan 08) and was interested to see in it a report of the AWDC Heavy Vehicle Trial at Slab Common. The photos prove that neither GMCs or Scammells are short of axle articulation. Two Scammell Explorers, Ferret, GMC 6x6, a KRAZ 6x6 and a Renault TRM 2000 entered - it's great reading, great event and just wondered if any of the drivers are on this forum. Always had a softspot for HVTs since a guy called Chris Acock from Yate let me drive his Scammell Explorer in a similar event at Bovvy years ago... Thumbs up to the AWDC for organising it. Let us know the date for 2008? JC

In case anyone's interested, what follows is the text of a presentation I was asked to make at the Heritage Motor Museum about the importance of club newsletters. I include it here because there's a lot of people on this forum in one or more clubs. Those who've been here a while may remember that last year's presentation about the future of clubs found its way into something of a hot topic about the MVT - hopefully this post won't be as controversial. JC The Importance of Club Newsletters and Magazines 1. Why am I qualified to address this meeting? It's a good questions and the answer starts here last year when Emma Rawlinson asked me to speak about the future for classic car and bike clubs. Then I explained that I'd been a gearhead since I was a kid and that as soon as I was old enough to buy my first car, a Morris Minor Traveller, I'd joined the Owners' club too. That was in 1978 and since then I've been a long term member of numerous owners' clubs including the MMOC (1979), MVT (1985), LR Series I Club (1989) and a member of numerous other clubs along the way such as the Triumph Owners MCC (TOMCC). As a result of this I've seen a lot of club newsletters and magazines over the years, this combined with the fact that I've worked on commercial magazines for the past 20 years at least allows me to have opinions on the subject! 2. Types of clubs There are two basic types of club regardless of what they focus on - cars or bikes - namely regional clubs and national clubs and it's fair to say they are slightly different and so have different requirements from a club magazine or news letter. Much of the remainder of this presentation will be about National clubs but let's just mention regional clubs. These tend to have a local focus - West Yorkshire Classic Car Club for example (I just made that up) but its members will live within a defined area, attend events together and can, if they choose to, attend a local monthly get together. The local club's newsletter can be little more than confirmation of the events - I am a member of Pennine LRC, a competitive MSA-registered club with a history going back to the sixties and these days their newsletter is exactly that - a list of event dates, venues and contact 'phone numbers. The National Clubs are a completely different kettle of fish because the members are fare more widely spread to the extent that they have local branches that act like local clubs - West Yorkshire branch of the Morris Minor Owners Club or example; I know this exists as I was at the founding meeting in 1980/81. However consider this scenario - again from my own experience - and it could be the Military Vehicle Trust, the National Morris Minor Owners Club or the Land Rover Series I Club all of which I'm a current member of. A member can be in the club, have the relevant vehicle on the road, be into it and drive it as often as possible but due to pressures of work, family and/or other commitments not attend a local branch (if there is one nearby), may not know other local members and may not even be able to go to local events. As a result he or she is something of a 'sleeper' member who apparently does little more than pay sub and receive a newsletter or magazine. It is my experience that, in large national owners' clubs like the MVT, MMOC and the Series I Club these members are often the most numerous. However they are just as valuable as the member who attends every event because it is these silent members who provide the numbers for club insurance, schemes, buy stuff from the club shop by mail order or on-line, keep club spares schemes afloat through purchasing stock and patronise the advertisers in club magazines. To these members the club magazine is the most important part of the membership and as a result, I believe, it has to justify the annual membership fee as its own! 3. The world is changing We live in a rapidly changing world and change is happening as fast in the communication industry as anywhere else. A club member can get commercial magazines, can access the www, can be in electronic clubs and web forums so communications from the club he or she is a member of are not as important as they once were. An example when I first became interested in Land Rovers the newsletter - several photocopied sheets of folded A4 was a bimonthly event to be savoured. Nowadays though the results of events are on the web (along with pictures of it), web forums provide quicker feedback and more lively debate and so or so Rover Torque forum Lancs and Cheshire ROC isn't as important as it once was... Another example is that Windscreen, the magazine of the MVT, was one of essentially, only two sources of military vehicle info, the other being the quarterly Wheels and Tracks, so its arrival on the doormat was a notable moment. Now however there are two commercial military vehicle magazines available that encroach on the MVT magazines territory meaning that it is less desirable and certainly less essential reading. The world is changing in another way too; classic and bike owners are living in a world where, largely unfairly, they are being targeted for environmental reasons. Often these enthusiasts are inadvertently caught in the need of legislation about other issues but are faced with the thread of widening low emission zones, congestion charging zones, road pricing as well as issues about asbestos in brakes, solvent in paint, emissions, recycling, end of life directives, etc - all of which can be considered a threat to our hobby in one way or another yet there has been little info about this in, for example, Minor Matters of the MMOC, despite that club representing its members. I note that from Practical Classics magazine that the organisation itself, the FBHVC has opted only to represent owners club of low mileage cherished cars. I don't yet know all the details, but feel this is a naive policy when faced with what, appears to me to be a thin end of the wedge situation. Club magazines need to campaign on behalf of their membership and inform the membership of the issues that we face. Who'd have thought that driving a 1968 Morris Minor in 2008 would be almost a political act? 4. So what do we put in club magazines? Current news that relates to that club's membership? Yes Club event dates? Yes Members' letters? Yes Tales of members' cars? Yes Stuff that is on the web the day after an event? No Specialist advertising that relates to own cars? Yes What about cars for sale? Well, eBay has changed the face of specialist car buying especially for plentiful machines such as Land Rovers and Morris Minors Do we make our magazines look line ones you'd find in WH Smiths? No because it's often easier just to go to Smiths! The IMPS - Invicta Military Vehicle Preservation Soc - has relaunched their club magazine and it looks like a league division 2 version of the CMV from Kelsey. Why would the membership want two versions of the same thing? Club newsletters or magazines need to offer, I believe, a combination of the following: 1. News that relates to the club in questions membership. This can be dates of events etc 2. Stories that relate to the club's audience such as epic restorations, discoveries of rare cars and so on 3. The politics of classic car ownership - like it or loathe it, we have to deal with an anti-car lobby and if we want to drive about in the machines of another era we've got to defend our rights to do so 4. Stuff that is too specialist about our chosen subject for the likes of Practical Classics or Land Rover World to bother with 5. Event calendars that relate to our chosen vehicles rather than the general lists in commercial magazines that anyone can see! The way to look at it is to consider your club's magazine as the local paper of your community. If you live in Huddersfield, the Huddersfield Examiner will keep you up to date with births, marriages, deaths, villains locked up, bring and by sales, dogs that need a good home and so on. If you live in "Morris Minorville" the Minor Matters should do exactly the same - for the Minor community. 5. Is it as easy as this? No not really. Most of my examples relate to large national clubs with a large membership - it's harder for tiny clubs although the smaller clubs tend to be even more specialised. I met a chap whose passion was Land Crab rally cars - there's one here in the museum - and have an owners club for these rare cars, The club know of all their survivors but will never have a huge membership - despite this they are fanatics - something we as classic car owners have to respect - and when I was able to help him with a couple of London-Sydney Rally photos he'd never seen he was able to enthusiastically pas this on to other members including the chap who owned the car in the pictures. This made membership of the group worthwhile to those guys who are never gong to be able to publish a great glossy newsletter. Larger clubs don't face such difficulties and can afford to pay their newsletter editors. 6. The lesson for today The lesson for clubs is that as the newsletter or magazine is often the only contact many members have with a national owners' club - the club magazine has to be truly excellent to allow members a reason to remain in that club. To close, and in case you're thinking well he can say all this but what does it matter to him? Well, I'll be honest and say that in the year between last year's presentation which turned out not to be as controversial as I'd thought because I'm not along in pondering the future of the classic vehicle scene, I've taken on the role of editing Legend the magazine of the Land Rover Series I Club's magazine. It's a busman's holiday for me and there's plenty of rough edges to be filed off this first example. I mention this only to illustrate that I'm speaking from my heart on this subject and fully appreciate the difficulties clubs face! 7. Conclusions 1. Club magazine has to justify membership fee 2. World is changing - newsletters and magazines must evolve 3. Old cars becoming more and more of a political issue 4. Content must be relevant to membership 5. Magazine must be the local paper of your scene 6. Magazine must be excellent to retain members in a club as it's often the only benefit Thank you - any questions?

Rupert Harding-Newman MC (1907-2007) RIP http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2805249.ece

Hard to remember exactly - one of the earliest (c1969/70) was seeing a real AEC Matador (timber tractor) and realising that it was a real version of the Airfix models (1:72nd scale Matador and 5.5in gun) that I had several of at home! Soon afterwards, as we went caravanning I saw a red Matador wrecker at a garage near Leek in Derbyshire - got my Dad to stop so I could photograph it with my Instamatic. Another from the same era was like Rick's above; Mum and Dad took me to the Tank Museum at Bovvy when it was just rows of tanks. It was the Airfix thing again - a real Sherman, a real Panzer IV etc. JC

Ironically Gunner Jellicoe was Wirral born and bred - he was the plumber on Lord Leverhulme's estate from school to retirement with the exception of his spell in the RA. Drove a Morris Quad and once told me that he was in it somewhere outside Rome parked in a line alongside a road when a despatch rider pulled up and asked for directions. Painted on the tank was the word 'Deeside' - the part of Wales across the Dee from Wirral. My uncle got chatting to him, saying he was from Wirral and the rider said 'I write to a girl on the Wirral' and produced a pictureof her with her friends... One of them was my uncle's sister. It's not important, just a human detail about blokes far from home. I'd better get on with the story I guess, it'll be full of things like that. JC

Hello mate, My late Uncle - Gunner Jellicoe - also landed at Pantelleria and went on to Anzio. Your post is the first mention I've heard anyone else make of the first of those places... Been trying to find the time to write a story about him and his Morris Quad for this website. JC

Found another Jeep resto (CJ-3B) project site; http://www.projectcj3b.com/ Meanwhile Toby S (above) is making progress with his GPW. JC

And another one... JC

Surely the amount of work ahead of you is less than this CJ2A that is to be restored. To give you a clue of how scruffy it is, bear in mind it was a blown up Jeep in Saving Private Ryan and I gave £100 for it... JC PS - this is its best side!

It's a Mark VI and we've got it by the ass... Sorry, Kelly's Heroes moment. JC

We bumped into him at the Tiger tank in Vimoutiers on a trip to Normandy. He told us of his struggle to save the last scrap Tiger from the battle of the Falaise Gap from the scrapmen and chatted for a while. He then invited us back to his house for a glass of wine and showed us his collection of WWII artefacts - one thing I remember in particular was a low mileage and original Kettenkrad... Another was the first thing he (a teenager then) stole from the Nazis - a Jerrycan full of oil - he explained that the resistance reasoned that everything they stole from the Nazis made the war more difficult for the occupiers so every tin of oil counted. He lived through terrible times and if he's now died, at least he survived the brutality of the Nazi occupation to die of old age. I feel privileged to have met him. JC

Regular contributor to Land Rover World, Toby Savage, a lifelong Landy man, has drifted over the fence and bought a 1943 Jeep. Many would describe the addition to the Savage fleet as a wreck, but its full restoration is being shared for all on a blog at http://www.jeeprebuild.blogspot.com. Follow the ups and downs of the rebuild each week as knuckles are skinned, tempers lost and money and effort are thrown at the rust! Thought this might interest some people here... JC

MOD signs contract for new Army patrol vehicles 5 Sep 07 The Ministry of Defence has signed a £30 million contract with Plymouth-based company DML for a number of weapons-mounted patrol vehicles which will be used by troops in Afghanistan. New Army patrol vehicle MWMIK is the latest addition to the Army's WMIK fleet [Picture: Andrew Linnett]. Opens in a new window. The MWMIK (Mobility Weapons Mounted Installation Kit) vehicles will be a considerable asset to troops on operations. With a top speed of 80 mph, they will offer increased mobility and protection. The vehicles can be fitted with a range of firepower, including a .50 calibre machine gun or an automatic grenade launcher and a general purpose machine gun. The MWMIK can carry up to three soldiers with their individual weapons, and can operate on a variety of terrains, including off road. Lord Drayson, Minister of State for Defence Equipment and Support, said: "These vehicles are well armed, swift, and agile. They will boost our capability with some serious firepower. MOD and the Treasury have worked hard to get these powerful vehicles to our troops in quick time, and they will start going out to theatre early next year." The MWMIK will be produced at DML's Devonport dockyard facility, based on a design from Supacat Ltd. Universal Engineering Ltd will manufacture the chassis, Cummins the engine, and Allison the transmission. DML has also recently been awarded a separate contract for a number of MEP (Military Enhancement Programme) vehicles. These are 6x6 load carrying all-terrain vehicles based on the same technology as MWMIK.

Snapper, I quoted the original bit f Rudyard Kipling because he was sticking up for the ordinary blokes by saying they were nothing until their country needed them... As for the current crop I agree with you 100% - I don't know how George Bush and Tony Blair sleep at night knowing they are killing ordinary guys to fuel their ambitions. Guys from Rotherham, Yorks and Nowhereville, Michigan who don't have the opportunities that politicians or rich men's sons get. Did you see the picture in the paper yesterday of the wounded guy in Afghanistan with his mates all around giving first aid - it was in a few papers because it was a Press Association picture. I predict it'll become one of the classic images from this war like McCullin's pics from the Tet offensive or the pics of the radio operator with the union jack on the antenna from Falklands... JC

There is a great place for rope in Leeds, West Yorks, too - Lion Industries(?). Will check name and get a phone number if anyone needs to go there. JC

For me it has to be Burning Bridges - I'm such a Kelly's Heroes anorak that my Hotchkiss has the same number on the bonnet as Kelly's Jeep (even though it's really a digit short). Sad but true, JC

Sorry Tim, that photo is the only one I have. It was one of those things I found on the web and copied to my desktop. It could well be something like a Dodge. I did read that the US Army had Dodges and Harleys in use during its war with Mexico. Pancho Villa's lot had Indian Motorcycles so the Indian v Harley rivalry spilled over from the race tracks to war! Regards, JC PS Not ignoring you either - been and holiday and then back to mayhem in th'office.

The General ‘GOOD-MORNING; good-morning!’ the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead, And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine. ‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. But he did for them both by his plan of attack. Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)

There's a book called Harley 45, warhorse and workhorse published by Osprey in about 1995 by Garry Stuart and John Carroll that contains a good number of IWM B&W photos of WLCs in use by Canadian soldiers in England in WWII (they illustrate the differences between the WLC and the WLA (also shown)). It might be out of print by now but a specialist MV bookseller may be able to help. I have a WLC if you have any specific questions - would have replied sooner but only stumbled on the thread when I was corrupting the site with pics of US Army drag bikes this morning! JC