Neville John William Day 7 March 1922 - 26 November 1990

	Preface		Dad and the Cranes
	Neville Day The early years		Dad and his duty to the Crown. Including the one on the can!
	Dad's Dad's Army		Dad’s driving lessons (and some)
	Help from Neville’s Father John Day		Dad and the Mercedes G Wagon
	The Day I met Day		Dad, four tonnes of concrete and the gravel tsunami
	Dad and the Coronation		Norfolk is flat (not!)
	Neville Day’s admirable tutoring		No pheasant in here Charles
	Promotion to Chauffeur		You can drive when you're eighty!
	Dad and THE holiday		Dad and the North Sea Gas pipeline
	Dad’s pigs and the Onion Dance		Dad's Butt pricking
	Dad and me and the Farm Fire		Dad’s idyllic office and the end of Neville Day Plant Hire Ltd
	Fluffy dog meets Steam Engine (fluffy no more)		Dad’s little known speech impediment
	Helping with the pruning and tree felling		Dad and the not a Volkswagen
	Neville Day The early years and the final hour		Dad’s wheelies
	Dad and Fairstead		Dad would have laughed!

Dad’s driving lessons (and some)

Being taught to drive by Dad on our little grey Fergie tractor, aged just eight, meant I needed no help tackling the 1937 Morris 8 I bought a few months later with my saved £3 apple picking money.

By the time I reached my 17th birthday, with the benefit of the smallholding experience, followed by the early years of Neville Day Plant Hire Ltd, meant there was little on two, four, six and eight wheels or dozer tracks that I hadn't driven. Even on one occasion a huge Euclid grader and which had two drivers, one at each end. Hence I passed my test on my 17th birthday, in my bright orange Mini pick-up.

There was no theory part to the driving test in those days, so I was not required to get my driving test examiner to complete one. I reckoned he would have failed though had he done so. His clutch control when I saw him arrive and park at King's Lynn's Test Centre wasn't all that hot either. Though I thought it best not to say so.

The little Mini was fine. Believe me though when I say there was not a lot of room in a Mini, let alone the two seat and minute cab pick-up version. Neither me, at 6' 4", nor my eighteen year old 5' 11" girlfriend thought so too. Even though she was learning to become a Physical Training instructor at the time (deep joy!).

Singer Gazelle Series V, 1965.

So occasionally I would ask Dad if I could borrow his prized new Singer Gazelle. Mother having finally persuaded him to trade in the Ford Consul, because it was 'common'.

To be fair to Mother and not wishing to portray her in a bad light, the old Consul was getting a little, shall we say, 'porous'? Rust holes making the car resemble a colander. However, for Dad, being frugal out of necessity, but certainly never mean, if she started then that was good enough for him.

Dad being Dad, unquestionably generous, to say nothing of remarkably trusting, generally agreed to letting me take his car out for the evening. Lobbing the keys at me across the kitchen table.

"Try not to get footprints on the headlining - again." He once said.

Mother just looked on, quizzically.

Chris Latham-Smith 2022.

Any person wishing to have mention of them deleted from this tribute then please click here.
Your details will be removed without question. No further correspondence will be entered into.

Return to Index Next chapter Back Final chapter