And they think the beaches are packed out

[clogs]

my time in the north....
loved Wakes week....well dressing and ram roast's.....the ram roast's were a later thing.....
many a good bike ride (regraded old railway lines, Buxton, Bakewell etc) a picknick and a bottle of wine....mmmm
happy memories......
Born in London, all we got for a holiday was a coach ride to Clacton or Safend, working mans club do, dad paid 2bob a week for us to go....
who above said we didn't know better......hahaha......

 

[lexi]

In Scotland the holidays were called Fairs. Glasgow Fair was doon the watter to Rothesay or to the berrypicking at Blairgowrie. Later it was Blackpool. Paisley and Greenock Fair were before and after the Glasgow one which was second fortnight of July and rained constantly in general.

 

[JimB]

I remember (not long after the war) how the Sunday school would have an annual outing to Scarborough. It must have been the will of god because the vicar would say goodbye to us on the beach and go to watch the cricket where Yorkshire were playing.

 

[MikeJhn]

Best place for them. They were awful things - sort of a Spridget on steroids (that or an A60 Cambridge with the top cut and shut) but with very little more performance and far soggier handling. I "graduated" to a BGT from a mk.4 Sprout (so called because it was green...) and was so impressed that I sold it 3 months later and bought a mk.3 Midget. Happy days.

Could never get over how BMC could down grade a car so much by making the MGB when the previous MGA was so good, Coventry Climax version.

 

[Keith Cocker]

Best place for them. They were awful things - sort of a Spridget on steroids (that or an A60 Cambridge with the top cut and shut) but with very little more performance and far soggier handling. I "graduated" to a BGT from a mk.4 Sprout (so called because it was green...) and was so impressed that I sold it 3 months later and bought a mk.3 Midget. Happy days.

As to working class holiday places, near Rochdale there's a little place which goes by the name of "Rochdale on Sea", even though it's 500ft above sea level and in the middle of the Pennines...

Also know as “T’Weighvers Seaport”. The clever thing about Wakes Week in the Lancashire cotton towns was that they were staggered by agreement so if you were in Oldham and all was closed you could pop off to Rochdale and find life going on as normal.
I had an MGB back in the day. Very proud of it until one day I was doing 50 or so on a dual carriageway, put my foot on the brake to slow down for traffic lights and it was sponge. The brake pipe had fractured. Fortunately there was a grass hard shoulder. I got the pipe fixed and sold the damn thing pronto!!!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My mother had two MGBs - dreadful things.

 

[Just4Fun]

My grandfather had an MGB GT. The engine had been breathed on and he converted the awful (lever arm?) suspension to not quite so awful conventional shock absorbers. After that it was sort of tolerable but it looked a lot better than it went. If I wanted to wind him up I called it a streamlined Marina.

 

[JobandKnock]

By dint of a bit of port polishing, a better cam and springs and some bigger needles and jets, etc in the twin SU carbs (and weren't they a 'mare to balance?) the average Spridget was pretty much a match for any MGB. My last one was tweaked to put out a respectable 105bhp on the dyno (which took a lot more work) and it was only when I got a V6 Capri later in that I had a lot more oomph. But that was 3 litres vs 1275cc - and it didn't corner as well

The only other thing I'd say about MGBs was that at least they had a decent bit of elbow room. In comparison getting into a Spridget was a bit like putting on a close fitting glove...

 

[MikeJhn]

Close fitting glove, try a Super 7, the original with the umbrella handbrake just over the knees of you passenger, made all sorts of possibilities available.

 

[SammyQ]

The "July Fortnight" is still alive and well in N.I.; starts 11th July, or any day previous to that to accommodate weekends. "The Twelfth" is of course the colourful and noisy reiteration of affection for William of Orange.

 

[JobandKnock]

Close fitting glove, try a Super 7, the original...

They were more like putting on a surgical glove - and in the days when I drove Spridgets the (original Lotus) Seven was just too small for me. I'd have had to cut a hole in the hood to stick my head out of (I did try one, just as I tried an Alfetta GTV - sadly I couldn't sit comfortably in either of them)

The "July Fortnight" is still alive and well in N.I...

Some of the smaller former mill towns in the Pennines still observe them, too, despite the lack of mills these days

 

[glenfield2]

It wasn’t just the seaside. This was Boulter’s Lock on the Thames at Maidenhead in the 1900s

 

[Keefy.]

Could never get over how BMC could down grade a car so much by making the MGB when the previous MGA was so good, Coventry Climax version.

Don't think the MGA ever sported a Coventry Climax engine. Lotus Elite's did.

 

[Keefy.]

By dint of a bit of port polishing, a better cam and springs and some bigger needles and jets, etc in the twin SU carbs (and weren't they a 'mare to balance?) the average Spridget was pretty much a match for any MGB. My last one was tweaked to put out a respectable 105bhp on the dyno (which took a lot more work) and it was only when I got a V6 Capri later in that I had a lot more oomph. But that was 3 litres vs 1275cc - and it didn't corner as well

The only other thing I'd say about MGBs was that at least they had a decent bit of elbow room. In comparison getting into a Spridget was a bit like putting on a close fitting glove...

Nah! SU's are a doddle, if you know what you're doing. No offence intended. B's certainly were far more comfy, a touring car really. Plenty of leg room.

 

[JobandKnock]

I didn't say SU carbs were difficult. I did infer that MGBs wallowed and didn't corner brilliantly - although they were better than the A60 from which quite a few of the parts were sourced. They looked good (well the GT did) and sounded good, but an Escort Mex could outcorner them and blow them into the weeds and was a lot more tweekable.. So the epithet "hairdresser's car" was born

 

[selectortone]

All beachside car parks in Bournemouth and Poole full at 10:00am this morning.

 

[JobandKnock]

Ah well, that's lock down for you...