1963 – My Dad's Photos

50

15/03/201308/04/2015 By shendyNo Comments

This is a long way from the best photo in the collection, although the fact that my dad is in it means it's not his fault. It's also the only photo I have of my mum and dad on their wedding day - and today would have been their 50th wedding anniversary. ...

Crunch…

28/08/201012/04/2020 By shendy1 Comment

This will have been painful for my mother (at the back, in the duffel coat) - she's a huge fan of Ferraris, and this is one that's had a bit of a ding. It's a Ferrari 250 GTO, at the International Trophy meeting at Silverstone in 1963. ...

Honeymoon

28/08/201012/04/2020 By shendyNo Comments

Marriage put an end to the petrolhead holidays in France, but in June 1963, the parents went to France on their honeymoon, ambling around the Alps and the Loire. When the French say "chausee deformee", they really mean it! La Grave. The parents stayed here for a few days, SWMBO and myself went a couple of times in the early 2000s, and in 2008, the whole family went back (see previous posting). Looking at this photo now, we reckon that the low building is the restaurant for La Meijette, the hotel we stayed at in 2008. It looks like my parents stayed back up the road, possibly in the Hotel des Alpes. This is down in the valley, by the Romanche river. I've been down to the same spot myself, and that water is bloody cold! While my parents were in La Grave, the Alpine Rally "just happened" to pass through town. Hmmm, coincidence or planned? We shall never know. And from the Loire, Azay-le-Rideau. ...

Domesticities

28/08/201012/04/2020 By shendyNo Comments

March 1963, and what I suppose is a tolerably important landmark in several people's lives - including me. "Do you, John Cristopher Hendy, take..." Yep, the parents got married. I've never seen any wedding photos, and there are only a few from what appears to be a very small reception at the Green Man pub near Silverstone. I imagine this is because my father was otherwise occupied on the day. The Green Man is/was a long time favoured haunt of racing drivers for decades. Now, a racing driver's pub near Silverstone - I wonder how that managed to get chosen for the reception? It's got a modern Premier Inn tacked onto it now, although it burned down just before the British Grand Prix this summer. Mother, on her wedding day... This is probably a unique photo - my father's mother and my mother's father. He was proper Northampton shoe industry working-class. She wasn't. The rest of my mother's family - twin brother, mother and younger sister...