In 1967, soon after Richard acquired his Morris Minor, we travelled extensively at weekends and during holidays on trainspotting and photographing trips. Sunday April 2nd, 1967 turned out to be rather more eventful than most of our trips. This was one of our many "shed bashing" trips from that period. We went with 3 of my spotting (and probably spotty!) ex-school friends to West Yorkshire. We visited the sheds at Stourton, Holbeck, 2 in Bradford, then Low Moor, Normanton, Royston and Wakefield. Very unusually we had taken the trouble to apply for permits in advance. On the return journey the car developed a nasty engine noise and I think the temperature gauge rose rapidly. We had to stop in Tadcaster and got the AA out at about 8pm. A failed water pump was diagnosed and we were towed to a garage in York. We managed to get a train to Darlington and probably the last Saltburn train, arriving home at midnight.

As Mum and Dad had no phone in those days, Richard had rung our neighbours to tell them of the problem and that we were returning by train and would be late. When we finally got home, we found Mum and Dad in a terribly emotional and confused state. It appeared that the message which had been passed on was that there had been an incident and only Richard was coming home. I imagine that it was an elderly person who had got the wrong end of the stick. It seems that Dad, being the extreme worrier that he was, had convinced himself and then Mum that there had been a crash and I had been killed! So, when I arrived in my normal casual manner, there was great relief and floods of tears. Richard and I couldn't see what all the fuss was about or how they had worried themselves into such a state and we were quite amused by it all! Richard's diary comments with typical minimalism "Panic at home". This story has been recounted with great mirth over the years - one of the DRT classics! How John returned from the dead!

The following evening, Richard, accompanied by Dad (to look after him!) went by train to collect the car. Surprisingly, for someone so organised, Richard didn't have enough money on him and apparently Dad didn't either. Luckily Dad had some friends in York from whom they managed to borrow some money, so they got home that evening with the car.

I seem to remember that the incident caused so much upset that both Mum and Dad tried to stop us from doing these trips but we carried on regardless. Only 3 weeks later we set off on our most ambitious trip yet: a tour of northern Scotland. See a photo I took at that time.