Morgan Cars and the Malvern Spring Garden Show

May 2006

We were in fact the last people to arrive on the rally – so probably not best placed to do the write-up! Anyway, we arrived on Friday evening to find most ralliers taking it easy with some liquid refreshment, or on their way to a local hostelry, having already been there for a day and a bit.

I vividly remember the Morgan cars rally 2 years ago – how different this was. 2 years ago it was Gordon and Jenny Wilde’s first time as marshals and on the first day, Gordon rang me to say that boats would be more suitable than caravans given the fact that the field was under water. Takes a bit of moral fibre to want to do it all again under those circumstances. Anyway, they did, ably assisted by Margaret and Tony Davenport.

They found us an exceptional place to rally at the Camping and Caravan Club site, Blackmore, just outside Malvern. Probably one of the nicest sites in the C & CC network was how several people described it. Lovely flat neatly mown grass, plenty of space and some very posh “facilities”.

Those who were lucky enough arrived Thursday and got to tour the Morgan car factory, seeing the cars built by hand using both traditional and modern methods. On Friday, most of those people spent the day at the Spring Garden Festival which is the traditional precursor to the Chelsea flower show, and said to be better, by those “in the know”.

Those of us who have to work for a living (jealous!) missed out on the tour of Morgan and had to do the garden show on the Saturday – still it didn’t seem to put the brakes on the shopping ability of some members! Late Saturday afternoon was reminiscent of 2 years previous as the lightning flashed, the thunder roared and the rain lashed down. Gordon Wilde was seen doing Gene Kelly impressions with his brolly as he visited each ‘van to rearrange flag in the hall on site.

All in all – a very successful rally and we look forward to a return in 2009 when we hope to help Morgan cars celebrate their centenary.

Paul Phillips

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