Better than the Beach at Brighton....

[Tony Griffiths]

Another Alliterative Austin Advertisement "Austin Aids Amity" - Amity, a seldom-used word - but very appropriate for Austinsevenfriends.com Click the image for a higher-resolution copy.

[Ivor Hawkins]

Love the gold GE Cup that looks rather long and elegant!

[Tony Press]

Were we really that tiny in the 20's ?

Amity- a new word to me -

friendship; peaceful harmony; mutual understanding and a peaceful relationship, especially between nations; peace; accord.

[Bob Culver]

Picnics like that seem to have faded from the scene.  Public spaces have the car park area segregated and are  too much used to picnic on, and use of any private area except in the backblocks would have the owner summoned by cell phone by some busy body. My father had a colleague with a trucked 1924 Willys Knight 4 on which he conveyed his 7 children and we used to picnic with them much as the photo, although with a tarpaulin as tablecloth. My father used to unbolt the Seven  front seats for comfort.  And the running boards served as tables. Into the 1950s it was common for groups to have a picnic evening tea on the miles of drivable beaches but with the advent of tv everyone flocked home and the tradition died. In the late 1940s on 200 mile trips in the Seven to visit grandparents we would stop for a cuppa on the side of the road. Traffic was sparse, few trucks and no big ones, speeds slow if the road had corners, the roadway occupied little of the total width, and not at all unpleasant. As mentioned some time ago many families used Thermettes, a water jacketted heater which burned sticks but my plumber father favoured a Primus as he was familiar with the pyrotechnics.
(NZ was noted for the very old cars kept in use. Nearly everyone needed one and new were expensive and hard to get)

[Mike Costigan]

Were we really that tiny in the 20's ?

Well yes, many were:


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Gallery photo submitted by Robin Boyce

[Mike Costigan]

A picnic from earlier times; don't forget the china cups and saucers!

   

[john williams]

Look remarkably like David Cochran driving the Chummy.

[Bob Culver]

Did they really all arrive on bikes with the tea set? I was given an ancient giant framed old bike of that pattern at secondary school after the frame broke on mine. Note the ladies bikes have a front wheel brake. Many early mens bikes were simply fixed sprocket with no brakes. The absence of mudgaurds is an absurdly retrograde feature of modern bikes

[Mike Costigan]

Not just the tea set, Bob! The picture is from a large glass plate negative, so there was a huge camera (and tripod?) too.

[Mike Costigan]

Of course, if you had an Austin Seven, then you could carry the tent and the kitchen sink, too (note the china teapot!)


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