Lang's Library Recollections

Very interesting stuff here Lang
Thanks for sharing

Paul

The Crossley trucks look amazing. Found this write-up.

Compiling this page each month leads to me blowing the dust off books that I haven’t read for years. The reasons why vary considerably but this one really divides my opinion; my 21st century sensibilities find its casual and paternalistic racism uncomfortable reading. On the other hand, we can’t rewrite history and no one can deny that to drive the length of Africa in a pair of armyspec Crossley trucks in 1924 was an epic undertaking. What’s more, this book was written by a woman in a time when women weren’t expected to wear trousers let alone go on long overland expeditions that involved a complete lack of sanitation and other creature comforts.Stella Maud Hinds was born in 1885, in Blaauwbank, the South African Republic. In 1923, she married Maj Chaplin Court Treatt, generally known as CT, a former RFC flyer. CT was born in London in September 1888 and grew up in Elstead, Surrey. In 1924, after an interval securing permissions in England, the couple, with Stella’s brother Errol Hinds, and several others, set off on the 17-month car journey from Cape Town to Cairo.Maj Court Treatt had gained experience of the Manchester-made Crossley vehicles during World War One when they were issued both as staff cars and tenders to squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps. On the outbreak of war in 1914, he had joined the infantry with the Loyal North Lancashire regiment and went to France. In 1915 he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps flying as an observer until he was injured in a crash in 1916 and, after a period of recuperation, was sent to Egypt where he had a staff posting until the 1918 armistice.Post-war, though still an RAF officer, he took a job with a survey team in Africa planning and mapping the Trans-African air route from Europe to South Africa. CT was in charge of the party responsible for the 2,000 mile southern portion of the Abercorn (now Mbala, Zambia) to Cape Town section. This was finished in 1922 and CT stayed in South Africa where he met and married Stella.For the Cape to Cairo overland expedition CT chose a pair of modified Crossley 25/30 chassis. These were a development of the Royal Flying Corps tender and were marketed by Crossley with a variety of car bodies or as the basis of commercial vehicles. Fitted with a four-cylinder, petrol engine they were rated as 30cwt payload trucks with dual rear wheels. The front wings were removed and separate roofs covered the driver’s cab and the load bed. The latter could be detached and when joined to the same item from the second truck, could be converted into a raft to assist in river crossings.However, due to their weight these would soon be abandoned en route. After transporting the pair of trucks from Southampton in England to Cape Town, the expedition set off and headed north through Britstown, Pretoria, Polokwane (formerly, Pietersburg), Bulawayo (in Zimbabwe, formerly, Rhodesia), Livingstone (in Zambia, formerly Northern Rhodesia), Kabwe (formerly Broken Hill in Zambia) Mbala (formerly Abercorn in Zambia), Karonga (Malawi, formerly Nyasaland), Mwaya (Tanzania, formerly Tanganyika), Nairobi (Kenya), Mongalla (South Sudan, formerly the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan), Rumbek, Wau, Al-Ubayyid (Sudan formerly the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan), Ed Dueim, Khartoum, Wadi Halfa, and finally Aswan to Cairo in Egypt where it arrived in January 1926. Mud, river crossings and a lack of roads along with testing conditions made it an epic drive. The trucks survived the trip, despite the conditions, and the couple went on other trips together until Stella, clearly a woman who knew her own mind, divorced CT in 1935. She remarried in 1937 and died in Johannesburg during 1976.

For today we have the story of two young Australians who drove an old Morris from London to Calcutta in 1938.

In 1938 it still was great adventure but nothing near a "first". The value in this book lies in its many photographs and really excellent diary of the political situation of each country only a year before the start of WW2. An easy informative read about two young blokes having an adventure.

 

 

 



 

Today's book is about the man who had the greatest influence on the Australian car industry ever, Larry Hartnett.

Brought in to save a failing General Motors Holden in 1934, Hartnett turned the company around and built  it into an industrial powerhouse during WW2. He was the acknowledged father of the "Australian Car" the first Holden.

He personally visited the Prime Minister, various other ministers and heads of departments when General Motors said they were not interested in building a special car in Australia and if Hartnett wanted to do it GMH would have to get all the funding from within Australia - and he did!

A really great read about Hartnett from his time as a WW1 pilot, through the British motor industry, leadership of GMH in its most important period and his sensational departure and the development of his own Hartnett car during the 50's.

Every Australian interested in not only our automotive history but the workings of governments and industry, much unchanged to this day, should have this book on their shelf. Almost every page you will be saying to yourself "Well, I did not know that."
 

 

 
 

So many great people who are associated with motoring.

An example are the Nairn Brothers, two Kiwis who decided to stay in the Middle East after WW1 and start a bus company. Not any bus company but one going 1,000km across the roadless desert from Beirut in Lebanon to Baghdad in Iraq, They started with Model T Fords and by the end of the 1930's had a fleet of by far the largest buses in the world specially built for them. Pullman semi-trailers with air-conditioning - in the 30's!.

Their business sense. operational ability and courage to keep going in sometimes very difficult climatic, terrain and political circumstances makes for an amazing read,  Highly recommended.

 

 

 

 

 
 

Lang wrote:

So many great people who are associated with motoring.

An example are the Nairn Brothers, two Kiwis who decided to stay in the Middle East after WW1 and start a bus company. Not any bus company but one going 1,000km across the roadless desert from Beirut in Lebanon to Baghdad in Iraq, They started with Model T Fords and by the end of the 1930's had a fleet of by far the largest buses in the world specially built for them. Pullman semi-trailers with air-conditioning - in the 30's!.

Their business sense. operational ability and courage to keep going in sometimes very difficult climatic, terrain and political circumstances makes for an amazing read,  Highly recommended.

 

 

 

 

 

I'll keep a eye out for this one 


Paul

 

Richard Pape was a controversial character to say the least. He ended up living in Canberra . 

There was a 'Readers book club'  edition his book that turns up in op shops regularly. 

 



 

Lang, check ch 40.

This one is very interesting. It is a rare book about an expedition which did not go to plan.

A group of 4 Frenchmen and a Pom set out in 1950 in an old Chrysler Airstream with a huge box built in the boot. Their aim was not to just travel to India but to find out as much as possible along the way.

Not too far into the journey they found they all had different ideas. As Paul Rambach the main author says of the writer Montaigne:

"Other people's judgments often do not agree with mine, and I have usually found them to be mistaken."

So after Egypt and the Middle East, some stuck to the plan with the car, one bloke found a motorbike and plunged off to ride through Afghanistan to India and a couple flew straight to India.

In the end they all had a fantastic time, meeting and parting and 3 of them contributed to a very interesting book more about people and places than driving a car.


 

 

 

We now move on to another truly heroic effort. Back in the 50's while Ben Carlin was battling his way around the world in an Amphibious jeep, Helen and Frank Schreider were becoming the first to drive from the top of Alaska to the tip of South America - in an amphibious jeep! It was called La Tortuga (The Turtle in Spanish).

They later brought their amphibious jeep to Singapore and drove/sailed all the way through Indonesia to Australia recorded in a second book.

 


 

Here is a great article on the Schreiders.

www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/automotive-hi...and-frank-schreider/