At the beginning of October  we had  our annual Mussel Festival here in Langebaan. This festival attracts  thousands of visitors to Langebaan and as with last year, us old car  nuts were asked to partake in a procession through the town and to put  our cars on show for the public to view. I took my Van while June  drove my MG Midget.

 A compitition was held whereby the public was asked to vote for, what  they considered to be, the most desirable old car of the day. And  guess what?........The public overwhelmingly voted my Austin Seven Van  as their most desirable car of the show. Second place went to a  beautiful 1959 Chevrolet bel Air and third place went to a 1948  Morgan. The prize was a 110  piece set of tools. I attach two photos taken at the Mussel Festival.

The one shows the sponsor handing over the set of tools to me with our chairman  standing on my left.

The other one shows the winner, a member of the  public, who voted for my Van standing next to the Van next to me.

He  won a weekend for four in a local holiday resort. The names of all  those who voted  for the Austin were put in a hat and a winner drawn. Then this past weekend we attended the Vredendal Variety Festival. the  second largest festival of its kind in SA. The town of Vredendal lies about  three and a half hour's drive North of Langebaan. I obviously could   not drive there in my Austin so I took her on a trailer and trailered her there.

 Again we participated in a procession through the town on the Friday  and on  the Saturday our cars were on display for the public to see. None of us were  aware of the Organisers of the festival choosing their old car of the  festival with a financial bank sponsoring a prize. I was very  surprised when  it was announced over the public address system that my Austin was voted as  the best old car of the festival. They then handed over to me a cheque  for R750-00 as the prize. I attach a photo of me holding the cheque  standing next to my Van.

This prize paid for all my petrol and  accommodation expenses for the two nights we stayed over in Vredendal  plus I had some change left over in my pocket. So, you can see that  the little Austin has been very busy.

 You can never be too careful with these public shows as you can never always  have somebody keeping an eye on the cars. When I got to my Austin on  Saturday evening, I noticed that the crank handle was hanging straight down.

 I tried to bring it up so that the bolt could slide in the stopper groove and discovered that somebody must have grabbed hold of the  crank handle and  tried to turn it not realising that it is spring loaded and must be  pushed in to enable it to turn. He or she then used tremendous force  on the crankhandle, so much so, that the aluminium holder through  which the crank handle goes underneath the radiator, was broken with a  large piece of aluminium broken off. Fortunately the broken off piece was lying on  the chassis and I was able to recover it. This will mean that I have  to dismantle the radiator and remove this thing and have the broken  piece welded back on. In the meantime my crankhandle is hanging  straight down. it  is amazing how the public cannot keep their hands off the old cars.

Whoever  did this must have used a lot of force to enable that aluminium piece  to break off.

 On Saturday, 13 November, the Austin Seven Club in and around Cape  Town are going on a breakfast run to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Austin Seven Ruby. Hopefully we will be able to get quite a lot of Austin Sevens to partake in this run. Then I must organise a Xmas lunch for all Austin Seven  Club members in and around Cape Town. The date and venue must still be determined. The Club will sponsor each member with R60-00 but we have to pay  for our partners. This is an annual event and every year the Club sponsors paid up members to the tune of R60-00.