In fact I had a nice read of Tom Rolt's Lines of Character while I ate my lunch...a fell asleep!
Just before that I thought I would take advantage of the wonderful autumnal sunshine and shoot down to the next village, where I used to live to see if the old pump was still in Old Man Simpson's old garage.
I used to live next door to this impossibly small filling station and based my artwork for the etched pump components on this lonely old Gilbarco.
Well, I should have know n that it would still be there. I haven't been near this spot since we left to live afloat in 2003. ten years ago the sailing dinghy on its trailer with its anodized mast was quite serviceable and the paint was just starting to crack a little on the pump. Today, the dinghy has rotted right through about 4 feet back from the bow. The trailer and mast are fine and look at this old soldier now:-
You can see the two pre-fab concrete garages in the background which were the workshop for this tiny place. The house across the road was where you paid!
That crazing is the sort of thing only Chuck Doan attempts on his large scale set-pieces! It takes 10 years for this to happen and is the result of shrinkage of oil painted re-coats on stove enamelled originals.
I was taught technical illustration by a man who was himself trained by Gilbarco in their drawing offices. Chances are, this pre-dated him somewhat!
The rope is holding White Rose, an old Springer narrowboat, which, despite being falling to bits and which hasn't moved for Gawd knows how much longer than the 20 years I've known it to be sitting there, untouched., is still afloat.
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