Idris Francis

Speed 25 with Idris Francis at South East Alvis Day 2001

 

We are saddened to learn that our Follower Idris Francis succumbed to cancer last Friday at the age of 79. Best known for his restoration and long ownership of his Speed 25 Charlesworth (recorded in Bulletin 323)  he had been an Alvis driver since 1969 with a TD21 drophead and later a TE 21 drophead, together with a 4.3 Rod Jolley short chassis  tourer and finally a fine Speed 25 saloon. He was an ardent Brexiteer, inventor and electrical genius, inventing the joy stick for wheelchair users.

Adam Gilchrist has advised that the funeral will be held on March 1st at 1pm at South West Middlesex Crematorium, Hounslow Road, Hanworth, Feltham TW13 5JH.

An Alvis Driver’s life

You can still enjoy Alvis even when the time comes to stop driving.

With thanks to Apsley for his humour and perception.

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Brian Maile, past Chairman of the Alvis Owner Club and Alvis racer.

He was very supportive of the Trust when we were contemplating taking our office at Bowcliffe, travelling from Reigate for the day to come north and sample the Drivers Club. He was instantly convinced of the benefits and persuaded the Board to support the move.

The funeral will be held on March 1st

Our media room at Bowcliffe is now fully functional – click ALFLIX

A Scottish Album

Now seeing the light of day since being deposited at the Herbert this selection of photographs, which we assume was assembled by Graham Bissett, deserves its own page for the breadth of Alvis models it records bought new or owned in Scotland.By sheer coincidence we also received some more old photos from the collection of the late Neil Lynch which includes this one of the Speed 25 pictured above in later special guise.

13367 Speed 25 BVC 834

The Scottish Album starts with “Pop” Brown – click Scottish

 

Additions to the Collection

The continuous process of cataloguing existing and incoming material has inspired some more new pages and additions to existing ones.

23574 TB14 ECL 123 Georgano Beaulieu March 1978

The Nick Georgano Collection of photos now has its own page and related articles – click Georgano

Retrieved from the Herbert is this photo from 1967…

Sammy Davis aged 80 1967 NAD Crystal Palace with Gerry Dunham – Ernest Shenton can be seen over the G

 

In order to test our latest donation of a VCR to complement our DVD playing monitor we found this in our VHS library……

 

which works very well…..To read about Sammy’s part in the 1929 Le Mans race click Sammy Davis

This photo from a viewer also completed the page on Police cars with some nice stories…

26734 3333 NE and Wolseley 6/110 5229 ND Police driving school skid pan

Click on Police cars

We have also been busy collating Aero material and this publicity photo from 1956 when Leonides engine production was at its peak poses the question – can you identify this plane?

Aero engines