We inherited Frank or, to be more accurate, he came with the house as our tenant in the flat below. He was in his late sixties at the time. We were unhappy with the idea at first. We had heard that he was a bit peculiar but the Wards assured us that it would be difficult to find a better tenant and we found that to be true.
Frank, they told us, was not peculiar but had turned inward and against the town and some might say with good reason. Thirty five years earlier, he had been approached by the town’s Little Theatre who were hoping to purchase the former Miner’s Hall and alter it to their needs. They had given him to believe that the hall would be named The Marie Walesby Little Theatre in honour of his late mother who had been their founder. Frank had given generously and had, in fact, been their principle donor. But the theatre had opened as ‘The Coal Face’ which has been its name ever since. Frank had been deliberately misled and he complained loudly.
Yet, it became Frank who was the baddy. A vicious campaign was waged against him which said there had never been the least suggestion that the theatre would be named for Marie Walesby. That that had been Frank’s own hidden agenda which he had hoped to force on the society by making them beholden to him: that he was bitching now because they could not be bought: that had they thought for a moment that he was going to carry on in that way, they wouldn’t have accepted his money.
They had been very self-righteous in that last claim but when Frank had suggested that, in that case, they might like to give the money back, it had only provided them with further grounds for attack.
The theatre group’s scenario became the received truth. Justice is the shy forest creature of myth. Those whom Frank had thought friends proved to be cardboard. They expressed their indignation to him in private but found specious reasons for not speaking out publicly. Better someone else. Frank had dropped them.
Frank was with the Wards for twenty-two years and had given them not the least trouble. His rent had gone into their account on the twentieth and he had kept the flat immaculate. He had redecorated it himself on several occasions and at his own cost. But he was a very private person. I never once entered the flat while Frank was in residence. The best that I could do was to look through the windows when Frank was away.
And the Wards were right about Frank. We had him in our turn for nine-and-a-half years and he gave us no trouble. At the same time, he never actually spoke to me if it could be avoided. The barrier was never broken. Not that he was completely uncivil. If he passed me on the drive, I’d get a gruff ‘gidday.’ Yet, in time, he thawed toward Carol my wife. But only if I was not around. Not that he said much to her either. He was not a talkative man. Most of his background we never learned.
But we did know that he was well off. We had a niece at the National Bank for a while and she told us, although of course she shouldn’t have, that every year there was a transfer to Frank’s account from Lloyd’s Bank in Huddersfield which exceeded his outgoings. He had gradually become one of the richer men in town though one would never think it to look at him.
Just prior to the theatre squabble, Frank had had premises built for him on the main street. They had never been opened for business. The exterior painting had never got past the pink-totara- priming stage. Frank’s ambitions in that direction had apparently come to a dead stop.
Everyone called it Frank’s Garage but I am inclined to think that it was really going to be a Motor Showroom. Grimy glass-panelled cedar doors opened onto a large floor area free of supporting columns. That is assuming that they would still open after thirty-five years. There was no sign of any pits and no hoist, no provision for petrol pumps or their underground tanks, it was not set back from the street, all of which makes me sure that it was meant to be a showroom. It was no good asking Frank.
It was a common sight to see people, passing through town, peering through those glass doors. You could almost see their tongues hanging out. The floor space was crammed with old cars, the better cars of the thirties that sat there on blocks, most covered with tarpaulins, untouched for those thirty-five years. It was no museum. The cars carried the dirt of thirty-five years. They had been collected originally by Frank’s father.
The vintage car fraternity probably knew exactly what cars were there with each car’s complete history. I am sure that they must have believed these vehicles better off in their own hands. Frank was doing nothing with them, just letting them rot, yet he refused to sell them. Could anything be more dog in the manger? Frank didn’t even drive. Around town, he walked. To go elsewhere, he took the bus.
The right-hand third of the building was to be office and workshop. It was generally believed that the workshop was particularly well equipped although it was not possible to see into it and equally impossible to find anyone local who had been inside it. Until Carol, that is, and she wouldn’t know a surface-grinder from a lathe.
That happened because the original power mains for the garage had burnt off at the bellmouth and Frank, taking this as a hint, had decided that the whole place needed rewiring. As one might expect, he had called in an electrician from out of town and, since he himself couldn’t be present at the time, he gave Carol the keys. There was no one else that he was willing to trust. He asked her to keep an eye on the man and to let the inspector in when he came. She had strict instuctions to let no- one else in. That included me!
Strangely enough, although Frank did nothing with his own collection of cars, he was deeply involved in car restoration for others, making and refurbishing parts that had been long unavailable. It seems to have been the challenge rather than any altruism on his part even though the work was done for free and at times must have put him to some cost. The restorers of old cars are a close-knit community, some would call it incestuous, and Frank’s abilities as a machinist had become widely known. Parcels were constantly arriving with worn parts or dimension drawings and if the item could be made with the machinery available or with the help of the local foundry it would be made.
It was no good though for anyone to make a direct approach to Frank. If anyone knocked on his door, at the garage or at the flat, he wouldn’t answer. Carol had frequently to go down below to accept a package or to tell a caller that his best course would be to write. Frank wouldn’t see him.
And then trouble flared up again. The weather boards on the front of the garage, being to all intents paintless, had begun to warp badly. This brought scaremongering letters to the local paper warning that these boards were likely to fall and kill some innocent passer-by. It was an orchestrated campaign. The borough at the behest of the local businessmen wanted the building pulled down. To have it repaired and made safe was the last thing they wanted. In a way, one could see their point. The building was an eyesore made worse by it being on the main street.
So the building was condemned by the Building Inspector who made a drive-by inspection on his way home for lunch. Frank was ordered to demolish it immediately but Frank, being Frank, took no notice and continued to use the workshop as before. The borough then tried to have his electric power disconnected but Frank’s lawyer was onto that smartly. Frank had been careful to keep his power account in credit, he was a wiley old devil, and the whole building had been rewired and passed by an inspector.
In desperation, the borough took the matter to the courts. Frank wouldn’t be able to ignore a court order. This meant further delay until the case could be heard but it also seemed to offer some certainty but, when the day finally arrived, Frank’s defence was an unpleasant surprise. He couldn’t pull the building down because he didn’t own it. He was just a non-rent-paying tenant. The building in question and all its contents had belonged to one Carol Timmins since the previous day. It was a surprise to me too because Carol hadn’t told me.
Carol, when I broached the matter with her, brushed aside my anger at her foolishness and at my not being told. She had only paid fifty cents. When the borough got around to suing her, she was going to sell the garage back to Frank. Perhaps she’d charge him a dollar and make a profit.
“But what about the legal fees?” I said and she laughed.
“Frank’s paying for everything. He’s determined to make the ‘rotten bastards’ sweat. We’ll swap it backwards and forwards until they find some way around it. Don’t worry. It’s not going to cost us anything.” Perhaps it was the anarchist in me that found the idea appealing.
And swap they did. In a month or so it went back to Frank and in time came to Carol again. Then there came a breather. The borough was either giving up or, more likely, dreaming up some new strategy. If so, they were wasting their time.
We didn’t see Frank for some days but that was not unusual. He would go away for a week at a time without telling us. He’d take the early bus and we wouldn’t see him go. He’d reappear in his own time and one didn’t ask him where he’d been. Which is why he was dead in the flat for a week without us knowing. It was not something that we expected. True, he was in his late seventies by then but his had seemed an unusually-healthy seventies.
Frank had no relatives in this country, he was an only child and his parents had come out from England in the late twenties. We contacted his lawyer who was in another town, as you would expect, and were asked if we would mind taking care of matters at our end. ‘Yes, we’ll do that.’ We were to forward a list of any expenses that we incurred.
The funeral was delayed for some days. A post-mortem was necessary. Frank had not seen a doctor for years. We were surprised at the number of people who turned up for the funeral. The service was held in the undertaker’s chapel and the Presbyterian minister was insistent that he should lead it. Frank, who was known to be scathing of religion, had made a set of gates for the church and, as usual, at his own expense.
With all that was going on, Carol had pushed any thought of the garage to one side. Others hadn’t. We had a ring one evening from a collector in the States making a five-figure offer for the Lincoln KB that we had. We had no idea what cars were there. Heaven only knows how he knew about the car or even that Frank was dead. And where did he get our name and number? Carol explained to him that, if there was such a car, it wasn’t hers to sell.
She rang the lawyer in the morning. She would get the keys over to him and the garage and its contents would have to be transferred back to Frank’s estate but that was something that the lawyer didn’t want. Frank’s estate was going to give him enough trouble as it was. Frank’s will had not been updated in more than two decades and the two Yorkshire cousins who were its sole beneficiaries were unknown at the address stated. There was every possibility that they had predeceased Frank. He was insistent that Carol owned the garage and its contents beyond any dispute. He would put the papers in the mail for her.
It still went against her conscience but the council, now that Frank was dead, put the pressure on again. So auctioneers with the appropriate expertise were called in, a specialist firm for the cars, another for the workshop machinery. We were advised to sell the machinery first to raise some immediate money. Many of the cars were of international interest and the auction would have to be advertised overseas, particularly in the States where the big money was, if they were to bring the best return. Before that, they must be catalogued, cleaned, and their state of preservation expertly assessed.
There was a Lincoln KB as the man on the phone had said and an Auburn 8-100 cabriolet and a 1932 Chrysler Imperial . These three are recognised as American classics. There was also a Willys Streamliner with its complicated sleeve-valve engine. From England there was an Alvis, a nice Lagonda, and an SS Airline, to name just three of the more desirable.
And, before the catalogues went to print, Carol said, “If you’re very nice to me, you can pick out one for yourself.” She was joking of course. They were ours rather than hers. It was difficult choice. We passed over the more expensive models and for a while had our minds set on a Riley Kestrel, a very sporty fast-back saloon, but we finally fell in love with a humble little Jowett 5G. It has two seats and a dicky seat, a fabric top,and the two-cylinder engine that we were to see twenty or more years later in the Bradford van. The Jowett brothers designed and were building this engine prior to the First World War so its a real grandaddy.
The day of the sale and the day-before inspection brought an unbelievable crowd. There were the usual wishful thinkers but there were many with real money. The auctioneers held quite a few bids from people overseas and the man who rang about the KB flew over with several other collectors. We finished up hundreds of thousands better off, it was goodbye to our mortgage, and there was an immediate buyer for the garage land, one of those most vocal to have it pulled down.
Carol and I would never have thought ourselves as possible vintage-car enthusiasts but, having acquired an old car, it was only natural that we should join a club and tour the countryside with them. We have found it to be great fun and we are glad that we passed over the more exotic machinery. Our little opposed-twin engine develops a measly 16 horsepower but it’s reliable, it always gets us there, and it has a sound all its own, a distillation of pure nostalgia. When people hear our chukka-chukka-chukka coming, they watch for us and they smile. We get more waves than the rest of them put together.
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