Birthday treat for Leslie, 89

THERE was a birthday treat in store for Leslie Gray, of Jubilee Road, Sidley, on Saturday.

To celebrate his 89th birthday, his family were taking him out to lunch.

But how to do it in style for a man of 89?

Up drove fellow Bexhillian Martin Bluhm in his pride and joy. Leslie was only nine years old when Martin's Austin 12 tourer was built.

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The joy of Leslie's face as he spotted the car was all his family needed to know.

It was the stuff of childhood memory as the Royal Naval veteran climbed into the old car for a cruise through the July countryside with his grandson Peter Peters and his wife Anna and his great grandson Daniel.

Peter said: "We are going to the Brickwall Hotel at Northiam for lunch. We thought it would be nice for him to travel in a car made in 1928 since it's the sort of thing he remembers form his boyhood."

Soon Leslie was safely installed in the front passenger seat. With the family squeezed onto the back seat, Martin at the wheel, the canvas hood down and the mica side-screens snugly erected, Leslie was prepared for his big day.

The 1928 Austin has bodywork by H.J. Mulliner.

Martin says: "I have had it for 40 years '“ half the life of the car. I know all its history, right back to 1937. I even know who the original owner was. He was a Roman Catholic Canon in Wanstead."

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