I was rather pleased to see an edited version of my story of the missing blue Bentley Drivers Club plaque was included in the recent edition of The Bentley Drivers Club Review magazine.
Should you wish to read the full story you can follow the link here, https://thediaryofacountrybumpkin.com/2024/06/24/welwyn-garden-city-festival-and-the-mystery-of-the-missing-topps-tiles-bdc-blue-plaque/
Now we have inheritance tax for farmers, I suggest it is time to abolish it for everyone, for how on earth can the government justify taxing people because they have been unlucky enough to have died.
The first thing most people do when receiving an inheritance is to spend it, paying off their debts, paying off the mortgage, helping their children onto the property ladder, or even getting onto the ladder for the first time for themselves. There are a multitude of things people do when receiving an inheritance and mostly all of the money they spend goes directly back into boosting the economy and helping to employ people, like starting their own business, or even small things like eating out more often. If a large percentage of tax is taken the last thing a recipient of an inheritance is going to do is rush out and spend money, they will guard what is left with a passion and be very frugal with it.
We certainly need to act now, before the farming community is decimated, inheritance tax was originally a tax on the very wealthy, which is not the case now, although it is still a small percentage of the very wealthy who pay the majority of tax in this country. A radical alternative would be for us all to have to pay inheritance tax, 20% or 40% from everyone, although this would be seen as unfair on the poor but surely if it’s unfair on the poor it must also be unfair on those who are slightly better off and for this reason I suggest abolishing inheritance tax for everyone.
Perhaps someone out there can explain to me why I can insert a link into this image when I do it on this Word press site but when I try to do the same thing on Facebook it doesn’t work, bearing in mind I am not a computer whizz kid any suggestions in very plain and simple language would be much appreciated.
I tried before on Facebook and it wouldn’t let me as it thought I was trying to get “likes” by underhand means whereas all I was trying to do was redirect people to my book page to give them the option of purchasing a book. See below.
We removed your post
Why this happened
It looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way.
Joe Wells
8 Nov 2024
Having said that Facebook does seem to be behaving rather strangely lately as when trying to click on a “laugh” emoji it only offers a “like” which is not appropriate when replying to a joke, also when typing, it keeps coming up with pop up suggestions as to what I may be wanting to write and virtually every time it is nothing to do with the word, the first three letters of which I have written.
With my limited computer skills, I suppose I should be grateful that I have made the link work here and not be getting ideas above my station trying to make it work elsewhere but I can’t help being an optimist!
First posted on the Bentley Drivers Club Eastern Region Group on Facebook.
Last week I took my Bentley Arnage (year 2000) to Alan Osborn’s funeral in Billericay Essex and it seems I have been caught in the ULEZ zone on the Southend Arterial Road and was rather surprised to receive the fine as at no time had I noticed anything pointing out I was in the Greater London Emission Zone as I had thought London was in London and not Southend.
It seems that even if I pay the fine promptly it will be £90.00 which I have to say seems a tad excessive and people wonder why us older folk become grumpy old men but I have to assume that by paying this fine the air quality in London will now dramatically improve. Having just uploaded a copy of the vast area that the ULEZ now covers I’m reminded of Adolph Hitler when he marched into Poland, saying today Poland, tomorrow the world and have to say the analogy between Hitler and Khan seems most appropriate as they both seem to be fairly beastly people.
Although the Arnage seemed the correct car to take to a fellow member’s funeral, I had wondered why so few people had not come in their Bentleys and now I know. I have always tried to avoid the ULEZ if I was in a non-compliant car, my error was not having realised the zone had now taken over the entire south east of England.
Trying to end this post on an upbeat note, I wish all the Bentley Drivers Club members, happy motoring and successful avoidance of the ULEZ should it be necessary.
I went recently to pay my respects to Montague Hulton-Hurrop who is buried in a small church in North Weald in Essex and was the first pilot to be shot down and killed on the third day of the war. Unfortunately, he was shot down by fellow RAF pilots in a terrible friendly fire incident, the details of which are told in the play, The Battle of Barking Creek, which is available from Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993523013
My 1947 Bentley Mk VI was placed in pride of place in front of the Bletchley Park Mansion, the home of World War Two code breaking and I have to say what a magnificent building it is, however it was not as well received by some of the wartime staff members, especially one particular American architect, Landis Gores. He declared the building to be, a maudlin and monstrous pile probably unsurpassed, though not for lack of competition, in the architectural gaucherie of the mid-Victorian era…. hopelessly vulgarised by extensive porches and solaria as well as by batteries of tall casements in intermittent profusion….. altogether inchoate, unfocused and incomprehensible, not to say indigestible.
Personally, I think it’s a rather wonderful building but you can judge from the following image whether you agree or not.
It’s quite amazing to think of all those who may have passed through this door and together with Alan Turin and others may have shortened the war by as much as two to four years. All of those employed had to sign the official secret act and some who had never met during their time at Bletchley even married only finding out what each of them did some many years after the war.
As usual we were too busy meeting friends and generally enjoying ourselves to think about taking hoards of photos but here is one with our friends outside the front door together with the iconic griffin gatekeepers. Another great day out and even the worst of the weather held off, as the wartime comedian Tommy Trinder used to say, “you lucky people” and I think we are.
What a fantastic day we had at the Bentley Priory Museum, Battle of Britain Day event, I had contacted them prior to going as to parking arrangements but they said they didn’t have designated classic car parking, but I was welcome to park outside the museum.
I was somewhat surprised when I arrived to find a specially reserved place for my Mk VI and I have to say what friendly people they were.
The Museum is a stunning building and was the headquarters of the RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain.
It has been painstakingly restored and has some stunning stained glass windows in the building, here Angella is resting her feet in front of one of them.
They look fabulous with the light behind.
One of the staff asked for a photo, luckily we had dressed appropriately for the occasion.
I would thoroughly recommend a visit to this beautiful museum with some stunning stained glass windows which has been painstakingly restored to its former glory.
What a fabulous time we had at the Goodwood Revival this year, meeting friends, dancing, getting picked for the best dressed photograph each day and vintage clothes shopping, what more can you ask for a weekend. We were very busy being filmed for an interview for Goodwood films to discuss our outfits and love of vintage, and another photo shoot before we left on Sunday. Angella has also been chosen to be part of the Dandy Wellington family which entails another photo opportunity, so the weekend was busy, busy busy!
The only down side was the weather which was somewhat wet, to say the least, which left the car parks looking rather like a bad day on the Somme, although as far as I know no-one fell into the deep clingy mud and drowned, unlike the poor souls who died in world war one.
I will be interested to see if anyone else damaged the underside of their car as I did coming out of the car park which I think must have happened as I rode up from the mud onto the metal road which was at the last thirty or so feet at the exit. The front spoiler undertray is cracked and has come loose, a new one for a Bentley Arnage is over £1000 pounds which I am guessing will not be paid by the Duke of Richmond, so I will mend it with some fiberglass.
The following are some photographs from the best dressed photo booth, I don’t think we scrubbed up too badly, including keeping our shoes clean by judicious mincing on tiptoes and in Angellas case wearing two pairs of shoes, which were cleaned and replaced were necessary.
Dandy Wellington with Angella.
The Dandy Wellington family.
Repair shop Dominic Chinea.
Lastly Angella with our friend Lady Nimmy March during a rather chaotic photo shoot the previous day.
@The Goodwood Revival
#GoodwoodRevival
#ReviveAndThrive
@danstevensphoto
I came across a post from the Butchers Dog food people which reminded me I did a couple of advertisements for them way back when in 1997. Unfortunately, this was in the old days when it was always very hard to get a copy of your work and in those days it would have been on a CD. I have very pleasant memories of the jobs and the chaps I was working with, it’s great to be working but even better if the people you are working with have a sense of humour. The closest I have to a CD is a old copy of a photo which I had on the wall at home, happy days.
The Diary of a Country Bumpkin 