Page 127 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

Also about this time in the 1960’s, he had damaged himself and found himself in Ruth’s
caring hands in London Road Hospital’s orthopaedic ward for several weeks.
In thanks to the staff he very kindly granted them use of an indoor swimming pool and
sauna belonging to his best friend and a close neighbour at Leverton. A never before
beheld luxury in 1964.
By the time we are back to our present 1978, Austin had died but his prestigious business
carried on in the hands of his previous staff.
Here we found a dark green Mk1 Jaguar XJ6.

One previous owner and immaculate. Well why not we said.
If we do not buy this then the money would go on some fancy lorry. As the buck stopped
with us and after so long working 7 days a week and not drawing any wages, we believed
we had earned it.
The Jaguar went to France the next Easter. To Brittany again but this time to the north
coast and a base in Dinard.
So rare was it to see such a car in France, the hotelier begged us to sell it to him!

JANE
That Easter was so hot on those beaches it was unbelievable. The holiday was wonderful
and back at home Jane had been in charge.
Sister Jane was living in Scunthorpe with her “Arthur Scargill” clone of a husband.

Having a little time to spare from time to time she kindly came down to help in our mad
house of an office. Jane was used to a male environment having worked at the GPO in
Peterborough with father.
This was her second husband and in my view no improvement on the first. In fact he was
dreadful character who always needed to impress that he knew best and that fact was
indisputable! More on him later.

Good service being our back bone it was always very difficult to know where to draw the
line between this and economy. It had been ok at Firestone to send out another lorry in the
same direction on the same day at the behest of a good client, but when we had to pay the
bills at the end of the day, then care was essential.

This had been one of Steve’s problems at Loughborough. He was not paying the bills!

Much of our job was chatting to clients on the phone and maintaining good relations.
Many of those clients in the Scunthorpe area began to realise that Jane went home each
night in their direction.
Frequently her car was left in our yard and she used our “runabout” Renault 4 van.

Not only this but the Renault being totally flexible, the front seat had to be taken out more
often that not to accommodate more tyres.
My goodness haven’t times changed. We now have a seat belt law that says you must use
one even in the rear seats.
Whatever my nephew Richard would say if he could remember the number of times he
was gently pushed down a stack of car tyres or lorry flaps that had taken the place of his
front seat, the whole of the rear of the van already full to bursting.
Jane would stay and help for as long as she could cope with the stress of “the job”. After a
while she would give it a break and stay at home until such time as she felt she could cope

127