The Early Morris Society

Post by **Ian Grace** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:06 am

Perkins Brothers garage in Wokingham High Street - the new 1928 Morris models lined up

Just over a year ago, and as reported in the VMR Magazine, I started to put together a formula for a web-based Morris group for owners of vintage Morrises - 1913 to 1930. Apart from a pilot website, nothing much happened as I became engrossed with completing the Semi-sports before shipping it to England, the VSCC eligibility debacle and other distractions.

Also since then the club landscape for Morris owners has subtly shifted. The VSCC, while being a club which encourages driving rather than polishing of cars continues to ostracize virtually all thirties Morrises while welcoming Austins with open arms. The Bullnose Morris Club has become even more of a picnic club and the Morris Register is struggling to reinvent itself after damaging lawsuits and boardroom power battles, but remains preoccupied with membership numbers and regalia sales and static beauty pageants.

So there does appear to be an opportunity at this time to launch a group whose goal is to recover, restore and DRIVE any and all Morris motorcars that survived the Blitz. As such, all members' cars will be treated as equals - whether White & Poppe Bullnoses or Morris 8 Series Es. I believe that in 2008, the time has come to treat all vehicles that survived the World War 2 with equally high respect and to maintain as many as possible in roadworthy condition and to use them regularly both on the road and in competition.

The new Society will start in a very low key manner and feel its way very carefully. Membership will come in two flavours - Web membership (website, forum, monthly e-Newsletters) for just five Pounds a year, and Full membership which will include copies of the VMR Magazine for twenty Pounds a year. If and when EMS full membership grows, a greater proportion of the VMR Magazine will be given over to broader Morris matters, which should, in any case, be of more than passing interest to ourselves as VMR members.

All VMR members will have automatic EMS membership and will therefore account for the first 200 or so EMS members.

The VMR stands to benefit from all this since EMS members will be invited to join in with our Summer Rallies and pub meets, thus boosting numbers which will be good for everyone. Thus, the two groups will in most respects be sister organizations.

The pilot website may be found initially at http://www.vintageminor.co.uk/EMS

The Members' Area username is emsmember and the password is bullseye.

Feedback and suggestions for developing the Society would be warmly welcomed.

prharris25 · Post by **prharris25** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:33 am

Excellent idea Ian, but what happened to Roger Bird's Alliance of Morris Owners ??? That seemed to be doing much the same thing, but haven't seem much site activity of late.

Post by **Ian Grace** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:43 pm

Hi Paul,

I am not sure what happened to Roger's website and must admit that I rarely if ever access it. I do know that he was forcibly evicted from the Morris Register which precipitated a damaging and hugely expensive legal case based on wrongful dismissal which nearly brought the club to its knees. He had evidently tried to take over the club, being Secretary, webmaster and newsletter editor. I am not sure why or how it all ended in tears, but I suspect that the end result was that he became persona non grata in the eyes of many Morris owners. I think his plan was to set up shop in direct competition to the MR and thereby complete its destruction, but it didn't work.

The Morris Register is trying to pick itself up and dust itself off, but then then they had problems with their spares system which fell fallow for some time, and was recently resurrected. I was member 3704/1 of the MR but my membership lapsed about 20 years ago. I found it preoccupied with officers and committees and membership numbers and tea towels and with very little interest in the actual cars. How else can you explain that Hary knew all about the Jensen Minor in Ipswich but had never bothered to follow it up and discover (which wasn't difficult) that it was in fact a very rare McEvoy Model 70 simp0ly begging to be rescued.

The club has always been incredibly secretive about members and their cars, which is the exact opposite of what a club should be - it should bring people and their cars together. Their excuse is the Data Protection Act, but this does not impact clubs like ours very much at all. The real reason was that the inner circle wanted to retain power. Harry always provides data when I ask for it on specific cars or owners, but he cannot do that for thousands of members - particularly as he refuses to use e-mail. I heard a while ago that the MR has a higher officer-to-member ratio of any car club. I guess the VMR has the least!

The VSCC is sadly going the same way. See how much historical information you can find on their website about vintage cars - virtually nothing. They still (in general) treat their cars as no more than the means to have fun, happily cannibalizing one car to make another 'special' and ignoring history when it suits them. To continue today to discriminate between classes of pre-war car is akin to the passengers on the Titanic asking whether the lifeboats were to be seated by class. The bigger picture is that the ship is going down! Pre-war cars desperately need to be rescued, brought back to life and driven, but some still see fit to debate over which ones are worthy of recognition and which are not, purley to maintain the status and exclusivity of their own cars.

All this is why the EMS is needed - first to provide online all the survivor and historical information that can be fitted into a website, second to lobby for recognition of these cars and thirdly to do everything possible to not only document their history but to get them back on the road and used for the purpose for which they were built - not just trials for the diehards and static beauty pageants for the bonnet polishers.

I want to develop an on-line register of every surviving pre-war Morris car - freely accessible by all members, and complete with full chassis details, ownership history, etc. This will take decades, but we have to start somewhere. The VMR has gone a long way down this road - with online details of all members' cars, including full Gaydon build data and I am in the process of formatting my master register of all surviving Minors before placing that on the VMR website. This will then form the model for similar registers for all other pre-war Morrises.

prharris25 · Post by **prharris25** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:19 pm

Ian, I agree totally with your sentiments.
As you know, I am no lover of the VSCC but I respect others rights to belong to, and enjoy, whatever club they wish and that goes for the Morris Register as well.
Whatever Roger did, and frankly I neither know or care, he brought a breath of much needed fresh air to the flagging MR Newsletter during his term as Editor.....the movement needs people like him if it is to survive. It was his departure which led to my resignation after almost 40 years , my membership number was 1072 ! Nothing political, it just was no longer value for money.
In my view, the one thing that sets the VMR apart from the flagging vintage movement is enthusiasm and seemingly quite a few younger members, sadly lacking in other organisations.
Keep up the good work !!

Paul.

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:14 pm

I hesitate to reply as it is a hot potato of a subject and you never know who is going to access the forum. I do know that the fight was necessary and that Roger got himself into a position that no club should allow! There are other issues (if you've got issues, i've got tissues!) but i'm not interested in petty club politics. I think it's a noble cause for you to follow Ian, if you feel up to it and you've got the will and time! I guess I've definitely got to log those chassis for you now

I personally find the Morris register monthly mag lacking in finesse and content given the size of the club, and yes I have tried to support Vernon with stuff and give my thoughts on the way forward when it was asked for. Any minor stuff for sale is usually sold, even when I phone the moment I get my mag!!! Last time I looked, there was little internet MR activity and the spares situation is sad when a club that size should have the funds to set up runs of spares like the vmr does, but then last time I went out on a mr run everyone thought we were brave to travel from Reading to Oxford in the minor so I think there's no need for spares!!! I enjoy the noggins and runs but feel the VMR has more to offer, especially with Ians input, the few vmr folks I have met seem welcoming and there is a wealth of help available on line. I must say that even the vmr seems to suffer from members lack of input though? I will however miss the singlemodelness of the vmr as it stands. GOOD LUCK IAN

Post by **Ian Grace** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:27 pm

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the encouragement. Club membership is certainly a free market - anyone can join any club they like and which they find suits them best. But since it is a free market, then there are sometimes opportunities to set something out on a stall and see who comes along. I think the case of the Ipswich McEvoy encapsulates in a single car the gap in the market, as it were. The Morris Register were too dozy to follow it up when the owner joined in the seventies, the VSCC think its only use would be to provide spares for M Types and the Bullnose Morris Club also shun Minors - even the vintage ones although they are supposed to cater for all pre-1931 Morrises. With this club landscape, it is little wonder that the thirties SV Minors have become virtually a forgotten breed.

I don't know how many pre-war Morrises have survived in one shape or form worldwide but there must surely come a time when a Register of all survivors becomes both practically possible and desirable, and having such a register online, together with other research resources, has to be a huge step forward in locating and saving as many survivors as possible for future generations.

Part of the VMR's success has been to find cars and then get them into the hands of real enthusiasts who have put them back on the road. Take your DF for example. Here was a car that was slowly rotting in one of David Brown's Lincolnshire barns for years - now Jeremy Evans is upgrading it and takes it everywhere. Another example is George Bryne's CMS which we managed to get into the hands of Robin Harcourt-Smith earlier this year. He is now winning VSCC Light Car awards with it and I was delighted to see a photo of it in action in Tim Cork's new Section book this Christmas. Chris Lambert's Semi-sports had been under protracted and then stalled rebuild for forty years. David Roscoe's Semi-sports was a bare chassis for forty years, Pam Knight's tourer was in pieced for forty years and there are many more I could cite. Encouraging owners to use their cars when they normally don't is a complete waste of time - getting them to sell their cars to those who will do something with them has proven to be the way to go every time.

Post by **Ian Grace** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:33 pm

Hi Toby,

Thanks also. Rest assured that the VMR will only benefit from having a sister organization by its side. I'll open up our rallies and pub meets to the EMS which can only boost numbers and give us the flexibility to do more. The EMS won't take very much time to run, as probably 90% of the man hours that go into the VMR go into the Magazine. Updating the registers and website is a mater of mere moments every day or so and I usually knock off the e-Newsletters in an hour or two.

But if I can take what appears to be a successful and popular formula and spread it over a wider ownership, then everyone should benefit. I'll get it going gently and we'll see what happens!

Post by **Ian Grace** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 12:32 am

OK - the basic skeleton of the EMS website is out there at http://www.vintageminor.co.uk/EMS. It will move to its own unique URL shortly. The home page will remain fairly static with all the goodies in the Members' Area. Use the username emsmember and the password bullseye to access. Exercise it and see if it works, and so I can see if the counter works - I am using a new one this time - the old ones were a real pain - if you edited the page in any way, you had to dive into the html and replace certain character strings every time! This one seems to be bullet proof. If so, I'll add a similar one to the VMR site.

I have started a Registers page and linked to a copy of the OHC Minor master chassis register (never before seen on the Web!). This lists all OHC (SWB so far) Minors which I know to be around and have some details of. I have details of about another 30 cars which I believe are around, but details are too scanty to put in a formal register.

I'll extend this register to include LWB chassis numbers and then get a SV Minor Register out there. Then I'll start on all the others one at a time.

Now for a break and a stiff drink!

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 5:22 pm

Unable to access members area, everytime I click on "here", it tells me that I have the wrong username or password

Post by **Ian Grace** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 5:26 pm

Hi Toby,

This sounds like the old Internet Explorer 7 problem. If you have encountered problems opening the 'Member's area' of the website following a download of Internet Explorer 7. The problem may be that when a warning box opens up telling you that you have entered an incorrect user name or password when in fact you have not entered anything.

To fix this problem: When the error message box comes up a 'headline message' is also displayed at the top of the page. by clicking accept activex 'temporarily' solves the problem.

Let me know if this works,

Ian

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 6:17 pm

got in! Will send chassis & engine details for you for YG and PJ. Didn't understand your instructions but my wife did!!! Are you able to get hold of the Morris registers register of survivors as a base for yours? Also why do some of the forum pages appear too wide for my screen?!!!

Post by **Ian Grace** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 7:03 pm

Hi Toby,

Great! I don't have open access to the records of either the MR or the BNMC, so will be starting more or less from scratch. The problem with the MR's archive is that it is with Harry Edwards. Harry is a great guy but he cannot possibly disseminate info as well as a web resource can. He answers e-mails these days, but only with hand-written letters! I will be asking all the VMR members with non-Minor Morrises to send in their data in the January 2008 Newsletter.

If you read the early VMR Magazines, you'll see that the early days of the Register were characterized by much data gathering and analysis. This work formed the foundation of the Register as we know ti today. I expect the same thing to happen with the EMS.

The BNMC has the progress books for most pre-1930 Morrises (but not the Minors). The rest are kept at Gaydon. I spent two days extracting every OHC Minor from the OHC progress book a few years back, which allowed me to generate the Genome. Now I need to do it for all the other progress books they have! I basically ran through every page, scribbling down the chassis numbers of the tourers, chassis, 2-seaters and vans - so four passes through 8 books. All the rest - about 70% of the 34,000 or so were saloons, so I only had to write doen about 30% of them, and mosrt came in blocks of 10, 20 or more, so it wasn't that bad. But I did have writer's cramp for about a week after. In all it took about 16 hours. The SV's will take a little longer because they were more numerous. I also need to to the LWB OHC Minors. Any volunteers?! The next one I'd like to have a Genome for is the SV Minors.

It probably took me about a year to build up the OHC Minor register of survivors, and of course the task is never complete. I have a fair start on SV Minors because I have details of about 40 owned by current VMR members and I have all Gren Strickland's files - he traced several hundred cars. One of my next jobs is to get all that into the standard format and get it out on the web.

Next week, I'll be writing to all the motoring magazines and inviting owners to contact me with their car's details. Then I have about 50 years of MR Newsletters and Journals to trawl through and then update the history of each car to bring all the data up to date. So I won't be getting bored any time soon! It is an enormous task, but then so is anything worthwhile.

DF9053 · Post by **DF9053** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 7:25 am

The Morris Register published a register of members and thier cars a couple of years ago, would this be of interest?

It is in paper form of course - I'll look it out and see what deatil is there.

Who lives closest to Gaydon?!!

Post by **Ian Grace** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 4:31 pm

Morning Jeremy,

Just surfaced after a bit of a night last night...

The MR members' list would certainly be a very useful cross-reference. As the registers develop, I think I am going to have to withhold owner's full details from the web published versions for non-EMS members. I'm not really clear about this, and the situation is probably complicated by the fact that the EMS is effectively US-based, where we don't have data protection acts, but freedom of information acts - quite the reverse of the UK! But then the data could be accessed from the web worldwide. Anyone know the best way forward? I could simply include the car's details and maybe the county where it resides, and 'known' for the owner. The master registers should hold full details of current and past owners, with dates, and all other known history of the car where known.

But then I have a copy of Phil Jennings' Early MG book which lists all known early MG's with names and addresses (but not telephone numbers or e-mail addresses) of every known owner, and I doubt whether Phil contacted every owner before publishing their details.

DF9053 · Post by **DF9053** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 5:06 pm

Ian,

As Data Protection and Freedom of Information are within my audit remit I should know the answer straight of the top of my head. However rather than rushing in and making a mistake I will check the rules in the various acts and get back to you. I may take a day or so as we are away for a few days with the inlaws in Scunthorpe and I won't have computer access.

DPA relates to living people, but names and addresses are often published in phone books etc., so this is generally up for grabs. The fact at an individual owns a particular car is no great shakes either. However there is commercial value in such lists. As I say I'll check it out and let you know.

Cheers
Jeremy