Steve, re your post #7, my father kept notes of some significant events that occurred at Filton, during his time (1935-68) at the Bristol Aeroplane Company and its successors, whilst actually working for the Aero-Engine Division, latterly in Flight Test Development. Apart from the words I posted, there was no more about the Canberra refurbishment work. The archives of the Bristol Aero Collection, now housed at the Aerospace Bristol museum, might perhaps have some more details.

Ned

Some of you may be interested to know that the BBC ‘Antiques Roadshow’ is being held at Aerospace Bristol on Thursday 17th May, for transmission later this year.

Ned

Apologies for lifting this one back up, but I thought the OP might appreciate some details from the Filton Aviation Archive. Your excellent glass colour slide is indeed of a Bristol Engines Olympus Vulcan flying test bed, but not for the Concorde Olympus 593 engine. The one in your pic is XA894, the FTB for the Olympus 22R engine, destined for the TSR2. This FTB was destroyed in a ground-running fire during December 1962, just weeks after its appearance at that year’s SBAC Farnborough Air Show. The successor FTB for the Concorde engine was Vulcan XA903, which was in use from 1966-71, after which it had a further few years as an FTB for the RB199 (MRCA/Tornado) programme, between 1972-9. I believe XA903 still (partially) exists in the form of its cockpit, in a private collection at Stranraer.

Ned

Brings back pleasant memories of 1991, meeting Dick McCormac and Craig Hill of the Canopeners at the Paris Air Show. Their Jaguars were in the static display, looking a bit the worse for wear after serious action in their GW1 desert pink. I was helping to run the Ferranti chalet, and we spent a couple of ‘interesting’ nights in and around Paris with Dick and Craig. They invited my family and I to visit them at Coltishall that August as part of our Norfolk holiday, so very pleased to see Dick’s name on this well-preserved example. A sad reminder of the passing of time, eh … no Jags flying, no Colt any more …

A bit late with this one, but I once had an Armstrong-Siddeley Typhoon, built in 1947 – the year I was born. There were four different models based on the same chassis; in addition to the Typhoon (two-door fixed-head coupe) there was the Hurricane (two-door drophead coupe), plus the Lancaster and Whitley, both four-door saloons. Armstrongs were an odd breed in the post WW2 motoring market, not the luxury end like Rolls or Bentley, nor designed for speed like Jaguar – just a “gentleman’s tourer”. You had to be satisfied with that, having just a two litre engine in a car that weighed nearly two tons – 0-60 took about 25 seconds.

I bought mine in 1969 for £100, when it had about 20,000 miles on the clock. Eight enjoyable and largely reliable years later, I sold it for £500 having just about doubled the mileage. I often wish I could have just kept it jacked up in a garage over the winter, taking it out for a run on summer weekends, but marriage and children changed the priorities. Estimated value now between £8-10k …

Thanks to paul178 for reminding me about the ‘whocallsme’ site. They’ve had about 150 complaints about this number, over a period of about two months or so. Some responders have mentioned that the caller has their address details, apparently from the electoral roll, and several have received abuse when they’ve questioned how the caller has obtained their number. One responder has tracked the origin to Narainghar, a village near Ambala in north-west India. I have been registered with the Telephone Preference Service for years, but I’ve lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) since, unlike TPS, they will investigate even if the caller’s name is unknown.

Will be interesting to discover if other forum members get calls from the same source in the near future. The full number they’re using is 01734 533443, by the way.

Apologies for thread drift, but something that intrigues me occurred yesterday with regard to unsolicited calls. On my return home, I did the usual check to find out what calls there had been in my absence. I was somewhat amazed to find that the most recent call was registered as coming from an 01734 exchange number … a number for the Reading area that hasn’t been in use since 1996. I then received four more calls from the same number (without answering them), the last one just after 20:00 hrs. This morning, the phone rang at about 08:15 from the same number, so I decided to bite the bullet and engage in conversation with the ‘subcontinent-type’ voice at the other end. It was an attempt to get answers to ‘a survey’ etc, etc … so I interrupted the flow to ask why the number of their call centre was registering as one that’s at least 17 years out of date. Cue ‘that’s the number our company is registered to use in UK’ bluster. Anyone had a similar experience, or any idea why this might happen? By the way, I’ve tried dialling the full number, with the 01734 prefix and the current 0118 9 version, and both get ‘the number you have dialled has not been recognised’ recording.