Paul Medhurst - Type 2 Detectives: Grandad’s Aston Martin, Dad's Austin Princess, Ford Cortina, Mum's Beetle, Mini Cooper and a ride in a 964 S6E7

Welcome to my dad's car, Angel!

Welcome to My Dad's car, a podcast discussing your personal relationship with automated colours. And you know what? It doesn't even have to be about your dad's car. It can be your mums, your grand, your parents, your girls, or even a neighbour's. If it made an impression, let's talk about it. Good day to you. Hello. How are we doing? Alright? Yeah, we're not too bad. Sorry, just uh you caught me with a mouthful of hula hoops. No worries. Good morning, Paul. Or good afternoon, even. Good afternoon, how are you doing? Yeah, we're not too bad, thank you. Yourself? Very well, thank you very much indeed. Wonderful. Meet my friend John. Alright, Paul, how's it going? Hi there, John. How are you doing? Yeah, good, thanks. Not too bad.

Good, good.

Okay, yeah, well we'll uh we'll jump into it. So for the benefit of the tape, we are joined by Paul Medhurst, who's probably known to a few of you as um the man behind type two detectives who are um yeah, Volkswagen Workshop Vehicle Sales Coffee Shop. Um he's on YouTube as well. Um so yeah, I've known Paul for I don't know, 15 years, something like that, through through the day job. And um yeah, we work kind of fairly closely as as two different businesses, and um here we are. We've uh we've dragged you along, Paul. Thank you for joining us.

We have indeed. Not not the first time I've been on a podcast with you, actually, is it?

Oh, we did an interview, didn't we? Yeah, for Instagram live, didn't we, a few years back in uh Covid?

Something like that, yeah. Yeah, it's good. It's good.

Yeah, they were good, they were good fun.

But yeah, I've listened to listened to a few of these. They're they're really quite good, actually.

Oh, thank you very much.

Yeah, I was worried I was gonna have to just come along and talk about my dad's cars, but it's just the general overview of anything nostalgia from my past, which is quite easy to talk about, actually. So um, yeah, quite quite relieved about that.

Yeah, pretty much we draw a rough line in the sand, I guess. Once you've got a driving licence, we sort of tend to stop talking about it. It tends to be sort of childhood rather than if you've owned it, although that's not a hard and fast rule. If you've got a good story, we'll kind of we'll hear it out. So, um, yeah, we will uh we'll kick off. What's your earliest car memory?

One of my funniest car memories was I must have been pretty young, but I I was in the habit of telling people quite randomly that my my grandfather owned an Aston Martin. Okay, absolutely convinced he did, until the day my mother overheard me telling it to someone, and she said, Well, don't lie. It's just he mustn't tell fibs. And I said, Well, he has got an Aston Martin, and she said, He's got an Austin Maxie. There's a big difference, so yeah, I was a bit devastated when I found that out. But yeah, I was quite innocently telling everyone he had an Aston Martin, so uh car dyslexia, it definitely is, yeah, yeah. It's kind of sums me up all along. Uh and then I kind of started. Um, I kind of always sort of used to draw cars very badly. I'm I'm still the world's worst, although I'm I I like to think I'm quite creative. I am definitely the world's worst artist when it comes to drawing things. But uh a few years ago, my my mother gave me some artwork that I must have produced when I was probably five or six, and it was I was always drawing cars very badly, even even as a teenager when I should have been studying hard at school. I was drawing cars on um backs of textbooks and notepads and blah blah blah. And you always used to build sort of um Lego garages, and um, I think I must have sort of cosmically ordered my future at that point because um lo and behold, yeah, 45 years on, I've actually got the real life version of the Lego model I used to make when I was a child. So um yeah, I think it was definitely um uh yeah, probably not in my blood because my father's not really a car person, although he did work in the automotive industry, but it's definitely something I've probably spawned myself, really. But yeah, I was destined to do it, I think.

What was the inspiration for the um Lego modeling then, Paul? Do you remember what you based it on?

There was uh I used to live in near where you live actually. Um I used to live in uh Crayford in Kent.

Oh yeah. I was there yesterday, funny enough.

Oh really? Car spotting, yeah. I remember sort of do you know the hill in Crayford?

Yeah.

We used to live at the top of the hill, but halfway down the hill, as you're going down the hill, it's a sort of turning on the right hand side, and there was a a garage along there on the left, and one of my dad's friends owned this garage. And I always thought I must have been I must have been four or five when I used to go round there, but it was the smell and the and the just just this old garagey feel that kind of must have sort of ingrained in me, really. And I was always absolutely fascinated by whenever we went to this garage. I think it was quite a rundown place for memory, a proper sort of 70s sort of greasy floor special, but it it definitely um got you know under my skin, I suppose. But um, yeah, it was always kind of there.

Nice, fantastic. What did your dad do? You said he he kind of worked in automotive.

Yeah, he he was a um he was like a sales area sales manager for Lucas. Oh, okay. So Lucas, the sort of um, yeah, auto-electrical people, and um he worked for them the whole of my childhood. And then when we were when we when I was six, he got offered a promotion which involved us moving out of Kent and up to up to Suffolk.

Oh, okay.

So we uh up sticks, jumped in the uh in the Austin Princess, and um drove up the uh M11A11, the M25 wasn't in existence then, okay, and would have driven sort of through through the Blackwall tunnel, through the East End, and then yeah, I mean it's it's funny the things that stick in your mind. I have a very vivid memory of a particular stretch of road that I still don't drive down now that we drove down on that road. Okay, I re I remember that day we moved and what we did, and it's it's funny it only this week when I've been thinking about what I'm gonna talk about in the podcast. It's amazing how many subconscious memories you hold from your childhood. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it kind of gets emotional when you think about it in some ways. So uh I will try and hold myself together.

My dad worked for Lucas, I think Lucas C A V, I want to say. He was involved with kind of um diesel pumps and trying to make them run quieter, yeah, yeah, really. Yeah, back in the day. Yeah. So what's the first vehicle you remember your parents having?

Um, my dad had a bit embarrassing. The first car I remember him having was quite a beaten-up old marina, Morris Marina. Yeah, yeah. And I think it was probably his car, and then I think he got a Mark II escort, which might have been his first sort of company car. I spoke to my mother about it yesterday, and she has very fond memories of this escort. And she used to go out and work evenings, and she said the first time she had to drive this brand new Mark II Ford escort gear in Beijing with a brown vinyl roof. Lovely, uh, to work. She was very, very, very nervous about taking it. I do remember the car. I remember going on holiday to Devon in it, and then after that, he got a brand spanking new princess, as I mentioned earlier. Yeah, and I do remember I've dragged it out of my subconscious the day he came home with that car.

Okay.

And to this day, I remember the new car smell was just something that I suppose he would get a new car on his on his company every couple of years, and it was always that addictive smell that you'd you'd long for that would never last very long, whether or not you just grew used to it or whether it faded away. But yeah, obviously, obviously it faded away. But yeah, that new car smell, particularly from that era. I don't know if you get it on new cars today quite as much, but it was a cocktail of sort of I suppose upholstery glue, vinyl, and everything else that went with it. But do you get what I mean about that smell? Yeah, yeah.

Asbestos and cigarette smoke. Yeah, probably.

Yeah, but it was that, oh my god, if you could bottle that smell, you'd be a rich man. Weirdly, I saw a princess yesterday, and I cannot remember the last time I saw a princess, and I was driving back from Crayford. What are the chances? There's a subliminal message there somewhere. Yeah, what colour was it? It was like a um, I suppose they'd call it gold, but yeah, um, you mean gold? Yeah, but it it was really um, you know, when you see something old from a distance, you think, oh, this will be interesting when it gets closer, you can't quite work out what it is in the distance. And I was really surprised when it got close to see what it was, but it it looked really nice. Back in the day, I wouldn't have sort of cared for that. But now, yeah, it's quite a nice thing, big old thing.

I wonder how many of them are on the road. Probably not many. Yeah, it can't be many. No, and I wonder what sort of person might own one of those these days.

Yeah, yeah. That's probably quite trendy now, isn't it? I'd imagine.

Yeah, I saw one probably 10 years ago, and it was kind of, you know, obviously cars have grown a lot over the years. Um, it it was smaller than I remember, yeah. But the windscreen, I think it had quite a out of proportion windscreen from memory. Yeah, yeah. So that went, we'd be moved to Suffolk by that stage, and I remember the day he rolled up in a brand new Ford Cortina, two-litre GL in like a really kind of quite a nice sort of pale green colour, okay. Registration number, GRB 400V. Oh, nice, yeah. Again, how do these things stick in your head? But that again, it was the smell, and and and I think by that stage he was working for um Lucas Audio. Okay, and he he came home with a for its day, probably quite a booming sound system, and it was just like, yeah, this is this is pretty cool. But yeah, like I say, he was never really into cars anywhere near as much as I am. No, I always remember the phrase F to get you from A to B and nothing more.

What sort of stuff would you be listening to in the car with music wise?

Um, I thought about this earlier, actually. I have very vivid memories of a holiday in North Yorkshire where I think it was the best of Rog Stewart must have got worn out. Yeah, sort of those memories that stick in your head, and I still like Rod Stewart to this day. So it's good. John Denver.

Yeah.

I remember a holiday in the south of France where the the Beach Boys got played to death, everything would get played to death. Carpenters, I think the mum was a carpenters fan. Again, it kind of, you know, this stuff stays with you. At the time I hated it, but now it's it's cool, nostalgic music, really. Yeah, it's it's pretty good. And then radio stations, it would would always fight as as all kids do with their parents. It was yeah, Radio 2, which in the 1980s seems so fussy and awful. Um bit worrying. The other day I listened to the song on Radio 2, and it actually seemed like it was too young to be played on Radio 2. You know what I mean? I thought, Jesus, I am getting old. Even if if Radio 2 sounded more like Radio 1, then I'm in trouble.

That's the thing now. All the presenters on Radio 2 are the people that we had on Radio 1, aren't they?

Exactly.

It really is a sign of you've had it now. It's uh Yeah, it's all downhill, it's all downhill from here. Yeah, I've started to listen to Radio 2 now thinking, no, this shouldn't be on here, it's not quite right. I remember when this came out, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

That's cool.

Have you got brothers and sisters, Paul? Are you an only child or yeah?

I've got a got a sister two years older than me. Funnily enough, her first car was was a Volkswagen Beetle, which is obviously my my background. Yeah, and uh yeah, she's she's not really she she loves what I do. I'd like to think, you know, proud of what what I've achieved, as likewise I am with her, but yeah, she's not she's not really into cars, but she's a a great fan of everything I do. I've always got one scheme or another up my sleeve, Andy, as you know. So yeah, it's a bit of a um a soap opera my life, but yeah, there's always something on the go. At the moment, we're um just building a sort of destination coffee shop just outside Cambridge, so that's my latest thing, and then I'm already talking about what the next project's gonna be and the one after that. So yeah, I don't stand still. I don't stand still. Quick plug there.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's fine. It's all about um yeah, supporting everyone, really. Um, do you remember uh kids at school with interesting cars?

This is a funny one, actually. So until a certain stage, I was drawing Ford Cortinas with jacked up back ends and boot spoilers and whippy CB aerials. I've told this story before, you know, whenever I'm on these sort of podcasts, but my sort of eureka moment was I went on a school trip.

Oh, okay.

We went to the New Forest, we stopped at uh services on the M3, and I went in and I bought a copy of Custom Car in 1987, I believe. And uh Mr. Keith Schume had written an article or a supplement within Custom Car called VW XYZ or XYZ. Yeah, and it was a VWAR called supplement. It had come out just after the first bug jam. It had you know coverage of the first bug jam, which I'm only missed by a month. I went to the second one and most of the ones ever since, but that kind of got me absolutely hooked on VWs. And um, what was the question? Forget what the question was now.

Uh do you remember interesting cars from school or kind of kids who are going to school? But you can oh, right, yeah.

They say this story. Yeah, I see where we're going now. Right, sorry. So I bought this magazine, read it from cover to cover, destroyed the magazine. I'd read it so much. But by the time I got back, I decided that I was gonna get a Volkswagen. I think it must have been about 13 or 14. And um, I think when the first Volksworld came out, I was looking at that, and obviously it was full of California look beetles, all pastel colours, you know, pinks and blues. And I was at school, and everyone at school wanted either a Mark II escort or a mini, but I was gonna get this beetle, and this was sort of pre-sort of 89 sort of rave music era when everyone wanted a beetle, but prior to that, no one wanted a beetle. And one guy, Simon Parfitt, who's actually still a good friend of mine today, but he walked by me and he went, Oh, look at that cowlock beetle. And I was like, What? How the hell do you know about cowlock beetles? And he went, Oh, he said, My uh my dad's a racing driver, so I'm into cars. I went, Oh yeah, of course he is. And he went, Yeah, and my uncle's a rock star, of course he is. Anyway, years and years later, I bumped into Simon and uh he went, Oh yeah, you know, you're into cars, I'm into cars. Come over to my dad's place. And I met his dad, Trevor Parfitt, and uh I was talking to Trevor, and it turned out Trevor was quite a successful racing driver, and his uncle was Rick Parfitt from Status Quo. So had him down as a baldist over years, but his dad his dad was a racing driver and his uncle was a rock star, so uh yeah, it was quite funny actually.

Very cool, very cool. Um, you mentioned kind of earlier you went down to to France. Was that in the car? So you drove over in the in the car.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, bittersweet memories of that. Yeah, it's kind of hot summers on sticky vinyl seats.

Yeah.

Looking back, me and my sister said, Why the hell did we do that? It was like, you know, south of France. I think my my my dad must have underestimated quite how many solid days would be in a car. Yeah. And uh it was, yeah, hell of a long way. And I always remember, I think they must have had like, I don't know, the Egon Roni guide to or the Michlin guide to sort of French guest houses. And we pinpointed a guest house about halfway through the journey and um didn't realise it was literally at the top of a mountain. So it was like four, four, what did we what must we have gone in? I think we must have gone in the cortina and yeah, windy, mountainous, treacherous roads looking down. I mean, I was absolutely petrified. And uh, yeah, I will never forget that. My mum saying, Why the hell did you book this hotel? Blah blah blah blah blah. And then I said, Oh, we've got to the hotel, and I said, Oh, we've got to go back down the hill tomorrow. My mum said, No, be going down the other side, it'll be fine. And it was a hundred times worse, but yeah, and we finally got there, and um, yeah, it's like I think it was probably before the the days of budget airlines, so um, but yeah, it was pretty good.

That was the uh cortina's reliability on the long trip. So, do you remember any breakdowns at all, Paul?

Yeah, no, I never we never we never got more than the punch, or I don't ever remember breaking down as a as a kid. It's kind of these cortina would have probably been only been a year old and it was kind of pretty good. So the cortina went and then he had a cavalier SOX 313Y. Oh, lovely. Such a nerd. I think he only had that for a couple of months because he got offered a brand new Ford Sierra, and the Ford Sierra had only just come out. I remember the advert on the TV. So we went to Bristol to exchange the Cavalier for the brand new groundbreaking Sierra. Nice again. I remember that day vividly. I remember stopping at the services, what I had for lunch at the services, what I what I drank. It's like, how does your brain saw that information? And then it's useless information that you know 35, 40 years later come out. But yeah, so white Sierra, wire edge, uh, grey interior. Yeah, I liked it because it had a rear armrest. It's like we'd never had a car with a rear armrest before. So that was like that was groundbreaking stuff, really. What were you drinking? Uh a pint of orange juice. Pint, wow. I've never drank so much orange juice in my life and um fish and chips.

How very nice. What from like a little chef or something?

No, no, it was a um just like a big service, sort of um what's one of those services between Bristol and London? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. One of them, one of them, but yeah, and then yeah, little chefs are another thing, but yeah, I'm sure everyone comes on here and talks about them.

Um, we've spoken about it before. I think you've got a story with regards to neighbours' cars, is that right?

Oh yeah, yeah. So parallel universe to my dad's cars. When we moved to Suffolk, we were kind of in a village a little bit out in the stick. So my mum decided she was going to get a car. So about the same time that we had the princess, my mum had a beetle. Okay. She had a 68 beetle in about 1980, 81, probably. And the next door neighbour had an absolute gleaming uh Mini Cooper, sort of very early Mini Cooper, sliding windows, lovely, absolutely gleaming. And then my mum didn't really like the beetle. She said yesterday, she said the windscreen was too close to where you drive and too small. It's like, yeah, I can kind of get that. And to be honest with you, now it's kind of nice because it's sort of retro, but back then you wanted the the mod con of having a big wrap-brown windscreen like you would have got in the cortina, etc. Yeah, so she didn't really like that. We used to live near an American airbase, and we had some really nice neighbours that had come over from California on a three-year sort of job placement at the base, and um one night we heard this vehicle pull up, quite an unusual sounding vehicle, and about five minutes later, screaming, shouting. I won't swear, but there was lots of swearing going on. Oh no. So basically, the the gist of the story was the guy had gone out and bought a brand new 1979 VW Westphalia camper van, two-tone brown, remember it to this day, without telling his wife, and she wasn't happy. So um, she said, Well, the mini's gonna have to go. And uh, so the next day I think my dad, seeing his moment, went round and decided this would be a good point to go around and negotiate a good deal on buying the Mini Cooper, which he had his eyes on. So the Mini Cooper was purchased for my mother, and the Beetle got sold. And so we had this lovely little uh Mini Cooper. It was yellow with the black stripe down the side, which I later learned was like the Briar X sort of racing colours, but it was super, super clean, and yeah, it was it was one of those cars, and I don't think she liked it. She said it was just again, it's a mini, you either get them or you don't, and um it's no more spacious than a beetle, is it? No, no, so that that didn't last very long, and then she got a um Osh in Allegro, they're just like oh horrible. But she said yesterday when I spoke to her, she said, Oh, that was a lovely car in comparison to the mini. I was like, Oh my god. And then she sold the mini to an American serviceman, and then we never I saw it once, probably a couple of years afterwards, but it would have been one of those lovely cars to find in a barn sort of 30 years on.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, that either got crashed or shipped back to America, probably got shipped back to America actually, because they're probably more valuable over there than they were here in the 80s. But um, yeah, so that was that was a good car, really. And then she just um, yeah, she could then went on and had various other things, but nothing really as exciting as the as the mini, really. No, and that's coming from the Volkswagen man, so um yeah, special memories of that car because it's it would have been, like I say, a really nice one to find.

Any cars that your parents or or anyone you've known that you quite fancy having yourself or you might have already got?

Um well one car that stood out, must have been 89 or 90. Um had a really good friend, um, sadly passed away, but his name is Victor, and a really good uh sort of school friend. We got into VWs together, and uh one time I went to his house and uh some family friends of his were there and they had a a red 964-911. Lovely. And we got to go out and have a spin in that and went stupidly fast in it. And um, that obviously inspired me because some years later, as soon as I could afford one, I went out and bought a 964. Nice, but yeah, that was uh that was probably the standout car amongst all the Cortinas and Vauxhall Cavaliers and everything else that my parents owned. But yeah, that was that was a bit special getting in that. Um I was never really a Porsche sort of bedroom wall poster boy, but I think that was probably the defining moment going out in that 964 on that day, and it was yeah, super, super cool.

Nice. You've got Cortina, Paul, haven't you? Is that just fluke? That's not a kind of similar to the one your dad had.

Um, I've got a Mark I Cortina that a friend of mine I I go to California quite a lot, and on one of my many visits, um, a friend of mine, Chris, had um an amazing car collection, but in that collection he had a uh he had a lotus cortina, and he had this sort of blue 1500 deluxe uh Mark I with uh Burton Race motor and all 40 DCOEs fully restored underneath, sort of patinaed on the top, but rock solid, all on sort of coilovers. And every time I went, it's like that car, that car. And uh one time we went and we fired it up, and the side draft webers on the right motor sound so good. And then, yeah, two or three years ago, he said, Look, if you really want this car, he said, I've got to thin the collection down. If you really want this car, do you a super good one-off, never to be repeated offer? And a deal was struck there, and then within a couple of days I was on the planes of California. And the plan was I was gonna go to California, get some insurance and registration on it, drive it around, take it out of Palm Springs, have some fun in it. But it it would have been so expensive to register it, insure it, and do everything. But I went over, started out, drove it around the block a few times, and then loaded it into a container and shipped it back. But yeah, I think that itch has been scratched now a little bit. But I was looking at it about an hour or so ago, and it is it's just one of those cars. I just love firing it up and and hearing it, it's it's so good. But yeah, that has nothing really there was no reflection of my childhood for that. I don't really recall being ever that passionate about Mark I Ford Cortinas, but it's something about that car, it's the colour and blah blah blah. It's just it's like a really nice sort of baby blue colour, and uh yeah, I've got a few plans for it. If you follow our YouTube channel, you will see. But we've got some a little bit of a plan for that car in the next few months, which are going to be really, really exciting. So um go on to our YouTube T2D TV.

This is a plug fest, aren't you? It is, yeah. That sounds good. Paul learned his marketing tricks when he was selling Austin Max's as Aston Martins. Yeah, been doing it ever since.

If you say it fast enough, they'll buy it. One of those fraudulent eBay sellers, aren't you?

Yeah, it's if you order an Aston Martin on Timu, isn't it?

Yeah.

Fantastic. Um, anything else we need to ask you, Paul?

Um, I've got nothing else to plug, if that's what you mean.

That's fair enough. You said um your dad wasn't really a car person, Paul. Was he one to get the bucket and sponge out at all and whip it over?

No, no. Funny enough, that was one of my first um enterprises cleaning cars. All right, going around the local neighborhood, and I'd have a little car cleaning round when I was about probably 13 or 14. And yeah, I would have cleaned an E21 BMW, my American neighbor had an RX7. Oh, nice, another American neighbor had. I cleaned a exact headlight 70, probably early 70s Mercedes. That was on my round, would have obviously cleaned my parents' cars, whatever they had at a time. But I used to do four or five cars a week for sort of a few grid at a time, and it kind of kept me in Mars bars and felt minute crisps at the tuck shop.

So uh yeah, bit of a dying trade now, isn't it? Kids of the bucket. Uh funnily enough, I did see a couple of lads going down my street not that long ago. But I guess with the sort of the boom of wash mitts and safe washing, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, a lot of people won't do it anymore, will they? They won't sort of let someone rub a gritty sponge over your paintwork.

Yeah, gritty paintwork in the 70s wasn't really a problem. It's kind of yeah.

Did I tell you about the boys who turned up at my house for car washing? No, I had two kids turn up and I had the 944 on the drive and my wife's Audi. And yeah, two kids on their bikes turned up, and they sort of knocked sort of sheepishly on the door, and they've got one bucket between them, and I think a few of their mum's sort of washing up sponges or something, and they knocked on the door and were like, Can we wash your car? And they'd obviously seen the Porsche. I was like, Well, but you're not doing that, but you can do the Audi, but on one uh yeah, on a few counts, which is hey, I'm gonna go and get you some shampoo out of the garage because you're not using fairy liquid, and I'm gonna get you a sponge and I'm gonna give you another bucket. And yeah, basically, I ended up dragging a hose all the way through my house from the garden for them to hose it because they've got all the suds onto the car, and then they were just walking round it a little bit puzzled. Oh my words, how are we gonna get these off? I reckon you must have been their first guinea pig. Yeah, I was the first basically, and then they told me I can't remember what they wanted, I think they wanted a fiver, and I said, I'm gonna give you £10 on the proviso that you get straight on your bike, ride into town to Wilkinson's, and buy yourself another bucket, a proper sponge. Yeah, and I think I gave them the rest of a bottle of turtle wax or whatever it was. Good. I've not seen them since, so yeah, maybe they've gone on to bigger things. They've got a studio now. Retired, yeah. They've got a uh detailing company doing Porsches.

Yeah.

Probably's fully sponsored. Yeah, indeed. Well, yeah, thank you very much, Paul, for joining us. It's been good fun. That's good.

Yeah, it has really great, and uh yeah, uncovered a few memories, so thanks for that.

Not a problem at all.

Thanks, Paul.

Nice to meet you. And you, and you, I'll um, I'll I'll definitely tune in and listen to some more now. So uh yeah, really appreciate you inviting us on and uh yeah, catch you all soon. Good stuff. Cool, look after yourself, see you soon.

Cheers, bye. Cool, there we go. Nice. That was um that was stacked full of cars, wasn't it? We got through them.

Yeah, yeah. That was uh it's almost too many cars for us, wasn't it?

It's uh yeah, it's definitely not gonna be a problem when it comes to uh promoting that on social media. No, and yeah, and aside, our second birthday today. Is it yeah, it is our second birthday today. All right, happy birthday to us. Two years since we put the first sort of teaser episode out. Yeah, obviously, not that it'll be anywhere near our birthday when this goes out, but um yeah, that's kind of cool. Nice. Um so yeah, I enjoyed that. Nice, nice stuff on there. Yeah, some good some good chat.

No, there's some real sort of standard British throwbacks in there, weren't there? So you know, like model Lego stuff for cars and I vividly remember using Lego a lot when I was a kid.

Yeah, I used to make kind of yeah, cars, garages, yeah. My textbooks at school were full of doodles of cars. Yeah. That was yeah, kind of what I did. So, um yeah, some similarities there.

Because we used to live practically on the seafront. We would often walk up and down there, and there'd always be sort of tractors putting boats, you know, into the sea there. And I remember at one point there was um you know get those huge sort of dump trucks that move those big sort of sea defence boulders around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was a period where that was all going on, so we'd go up there and just watch those for what seemed like hours. But yeah, you just go home and try and recreate the scene using the Lego, which is always good fun.

I've got an interesting story actually. It's not uh well, I'll keep it safe for younger ears, but um when I finished school, so I was probably 16, I guess, 15, 16 that summer. My uh grandparents had a beach hut down on the seafront. And we used to go down there and kind of um consume uh alcohol, probably, and um have barbecues and stuff like that. And a few of my friends stayed over there one night, and um in the morning they got woken up by the police, and um yeah, transpires there was a Ford Orion blue one down on the sand. Oh no, and they wanted to know whether it was anything to do with them, and they were like, No, I don't know what you mean. And I I rode, I'd kind of gone home and then rode back down there in the morning to kind of catch up with them. And um, yeah, there's a policeman down on the beach, sort of just guarding this uh this car. And um, yeah, transpires, I think, have been driven down there by by the owner. They've just kind of decided to take their car for a drive, but yeah, the boot full of kind of uh adult equipment and uh and magazine.

Yeah, there already was a blue Orion.

No, yeah, very funny, but uh yeah, they'd obviously driven it down there, got it stuck, had to leg it. Oh right, I see, and then the tide had come in overnight.

I thought that was gonna get really dark. I thought you were gonna say they'd found the car abandoned and the owner had sort of disappeared off into the sea or something like that. That's actually turned out quite quite happy ending, yeah.

Unfortunately, yeah, it was an an amusing uh Anne Summers based story for you.

Fantastic.

Wow, indeed. Okay, John, thank you very much. All right, mate. I will uh I'll let you get back to what you're up to and um yeah, we'll roll the credits.

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