The last few days have been spent painting the interior of the new shed and discovering that the window wasn’t watertight.

I remember thinking at the time that some sealant might have been wise but was then distracted.

Anyway, in there now is a quantity of come-in-handy parts, some of which will sit there for the next 'n' years...

...though whose relocation has given me room to set up the Riley chassis at a comfortable working height.

Now the chassis is cleaned up and sprayed in weld-through primer, some damage - possibly collision damage - has shown up which explained why one of the holes in the subframe had been enlarged. The hole in the top of the left-hand lobe should be in line with the hole directly beneath it. It's a good 3/16" out of kilter. I'll cut a very thin horizontal 'V' in the lobe, release the bushing which sits behind it and is attached to a flange on the chassis rail, then gently persuade the lobe back into its original position.

The scanning people sent me this reference for the wheel centres. The blocks on the bottom of the frame represent the ground clearance for the bodywork. I still haven't decided on the final grille shape; it looks rather inelegant in this view.

Not so The Great Collector's pretty little Peugeot camionette. It's now back together again and almost ready for starting up. I've heard from Depanoto in France and they can supply a second-hand mag. Photos and a price are on the way. In other TGC news, there may soon be a rather special motorcar joining the fleet; delicate negotiations are in hand; more anon.

When The Wright Brothers learnt to fly at Blackbushe in 1980, the airfield was owned by a gentleman called Doug Arnold. He would drive about the airfield in his Rolls-Royce, often coming up behind your aircraft on the taxiway, blasting on his horn for you to make way. Mr Arnold had a company called 'Warbirds of Great Britain', and there was never a dull moment on the field. I remember this Junkers JU 52 staggering around the circuit one evening with one of its engines belching smoke.

There was a resident Heinkel 111 that took to the air on occasion and a Douglas Invader that was displayed with terrifying gusto. Spitfires, Harvards, C-47's, a Sopwith Pup and several other interesting aircraft were often in the circuit with you. I have somewhere photos of the airfield dressed up for a film - 'Hannover Square' possibly - for which a couple of Fortresses turned up and dummy B-17's were built by set designers to make up the squadron numbers.

At the time, my daily transport was a 1951 Ariel VB, sporting a Jet 80 sidecar. The sidecar was collected from a lock-up in South Norwood, London. The Other Wright Brother rode shotgun. Towards the end of the 60 mile journey home, our heads were nearly touching as the pins in the clamps of the sidecar frame had fallen out. I'm sure there's a joke in there about headway.