Chap 15

Page 175, para 3

Following up on the three 1913 Baby Cadillacs has been interesting, even if a little disappointing. After writing a comprehensive article with pictures on the three scaled-down cars for the American Cadillac LaSalle Club, I received a detailed identification of each of the cars depicted. The biggest surprise was that all three cars were in fact very easily identifiable by various differences, most of which Julian Bennett and I had overlooked. We had presumed that the angle from which each photograph had been taken created some form of illusion. Therefore, although there is still no sign of the ‘Leland’ car and the King of Siam’s car is yet to be divulged by its new Japanese owner, at least both the Cadillac fraternity and the Norsk Teknisk Museum in Oslo now have a concrete record of ‘which is which’.
One amusing point unearthed was that Fred Bennett, after Queen Alexandra had bought the car for Prince Olaf of Norway for the sum of Ł62 – quite some amount in those days – had actually been summoned to Sandringham in Norfolk, “to instruct the young prince and his brother in the intricacies of the new toy”. Presumably the ‘instruction’ was successful, as there was no noticeable damage or obvious repairs from an earlier era when the car was loaned to us for the 2003 Bennett Run. In fact, apart from the somewhat ‘spindly’ replacement tyres, the car was in the finest of original conditions.

Page 175, last para

   Amongst the papers handed down to Julian Bennett from his grandfather was an added discovery concerning my own family’s connection to Fred Bennett. Not only had my grandfather been at Crewe with Fred Bennett but the two of them had actually started their engineering lives together at the ‘St James & Pall Mall Electric Light Company’ in London. Julian’s grandfather had left to seek his fortune in motorcars, while my more staid grandfather had remained with the company for his entire working life.
    This link came to light when Julian turned up a faded barely decipherable typed copy of one of Fred Bennett’s earliest articles – written presumably for some motoring journal – that mentioned the making of his first motorised vehicle while working for the ‘St James & Pall Mall Electric Light Company’. On further sleuthing, this was confirmed in greater visual clarity in a 1920’s ‘early driver’ membership form that was unearthed for us in the Royal Automobile Club’s extensive archives.
    Further to that, while going through my own grandfather’s correspondence to my mother after my mother died in 2001, I came across a letter from him written in 1966. In it, he reminisced about possibly visiting his old workplace in Carnaby Street (where the St James & Pall Mall Electric Light Company used to be), adding: “Carnaby Street is now very famous, I don’t know why but I believe there are two sky-scrapers there.” Being as he was then in his ninetieth year and subsequently died eighteen months later, he obviously never knew the true reasoning for Carnaby Street’s rise to fame, nor did he likely ever get to see it again.
    Working back through these letters, year on year, I eventually came across one dated 19th July 1956, which tells of how my grandfather had met up for lunch with a bunch of co-employees of the St James & Pall Mall Electric Light Company. Whereas he had not seen one of those present since 1906, there was no such mention or explanation offered concerning ‘Bennett’ or another named ‘Gore’. This certainly answered one question Julian and I had puzzled over: had our two grandfathers, with their so obviously different interests, remained in touch over the years. Thinking further on the subject, and tying in what my mother had said about her father being ‘off to meet Bennett’ and always being ‘such fun’, I suspect they were in fact life-long friends after all.
    Moreover, having noted from this same letter that Fred Bennett started at ‘St James’ in 1896 and my grandfather only in 1900, I would be surprised if the former had not persuaded the latter to join the company – especially as history relates that there was ‘good money’ to be earned working for any of the upcoming electric power generation companies back then.
    This additional co-incidence of the two grandfathers not only having studied together in Crewe but also having begun their working lives together at the same company – to say nothing of their possibly being life-long friends – makes one suspect that further co-incidences, followed by yet others, will continue to abound. Who knows?