'Regardless of Risk' - My Motoring Days in Classic Cars

In Napoleonic mode at the Castle at Liw, Poland, on the former Lithuanian frontier 1993      
1975 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow
This great and underestimated touring car was featured in the adventurous cultural and motoring rally around Poland I participated in the summer of 1993. I recounted the saga in one chapter of my book
A Country in the Moon: Travels in Search of the Heart of Poland (Granta, London 2009)

The castle of the Dukes of Mazovia dates from 1420 and on the right the small baroque country house (now a museum) was added in 1780. The adjacent water meadows are delightfully picturesque.

I have now owned this car for 30 years

In Palmiry Forest near Warsaw, summer pic-nic  2012  
1949   MG TC

In more tragic times this forest was the Polish and Jewish killing field for the Nazis just outside Warsaw . Many brilliant Polish and Jewish middle-class professionals, sportsmen, engineers and priests were executed here. It is hard to expunge the historical horror of it imprinted on the air, niggling away when simply on an innocent summer pic-nic in peacetime.  A large war cemetery and harrowing museum are nearby. One must move forward yet not forget.

1949 MG TC at speed in the Las Bielanski near Warsaw.
Black with an Apple Green Collingburn interior and correct fawn fabric tonneau cover

Rev Counter on the 1949 MG TC
Note the Apple Green Rexine dash covering, carefully matched to the leather upholstery by the Collingburn brothers- all correctly in period for the 1949 model

MG TC -  period company promotional photograph somewhere in an England that scarcely exists today

It is unlikely many of you who read my classical music blog also share my passion for classic cars, but I have recently begun writing for a new, rather glamorous, Polish, large format quarterly car magazine called 'RAMP'. 

The first article they asked for was about my life with classic cars - a tall order. I entitled it 'Regardless of Risk' - the risks were mainly financial I might add.

I will not burden my blog with what is probably a minority interest compared to the music of Chopin but if you would like to read about this subject and see some excellent photographs of a 1949 concours MG TC in action click on: 

https://www.box.com/s/zzhp7vjlzho4po288ypn     (English language version)

 https://www.box.com/s/73rztlrf2xfafr9ub00u        (Polish language version)