Halloween has come and gone, the clocks have been put back (or was it forward?). Guy Fawkes Night, (Nov 5th) a celebration only the English understand!.....
What does this all mean?
Winter is upon us!!!!!!
Already the ice scrapers have been out, in the last week of October.

Is your car prepared for the onslaught of winter?
If not, then go through your owners manual for all those pre- winter checks!
If like me you don't like getting your hands dirty, many local garages/tyre specialists offer free pre-winter inspections, so why not take advantage of these free offers!
I am afraid there is not much in the newsletter this month, too busy to get it all together, I'm afraid!...must try harder!!!!!

Our planned visit to The MG Owners Club, HQ, in Swavesey ( for mid November) has had to be postponed. We had aplogies from the Owners club, but it was to be in the same week as the Classic Car Show, at Birmingham's NEC, and they are very busy that week! We hope to reschedule the visit for perhaps February.
A reminder that our 'Christmas Dinner & Dance' ( December 13th) is now fully booked! All 50 places have been taken.

Two of our club members, Colin & Tessa Buckler, work for the same company, 'Colourcare', a film processing laboratory. If you had ever wondered what happens to your film, once you have used it up at that last MG event, and taken it to the chemists or camera shop, then our recent visit to 'Colourcare' was about to solve that mystery!

The Cambridge & District MGOC just about managed to fill the visitors car park at the 'Maltings' in Newmarket, the premises of Colourcare. Being in photography myself for over 20 years now I had a pretty good idea how to process a film, but the logistics of such a huge operation, were to astound me, and the other members of the club too!

At least 40,000 rolls of film are processed each night!


During the summer months this can perhaps double.
They ( the films) are brought to Newmarket by a fleet of vans, covering an area from Skegness, across to the Midlands, East Anglia & down to central London, and parts of Kent.

Each chemist, or high street camera shop, has it's own unique 'mailbag', the van driver returning the previous days work, as he makes another collection!
Once the 'mailbag' reaches 'Colourcare', they have to empied out and the individual envelopes have to be sorted, according to customers requirements, ie print size, gloss or matt finish

As previously stated there are about 40,000 envelopes, each containing a roll of film, (mostly 35mm).
The last films to arrive at the depot, normally are the first to leave! These are the films that have come in the vans, which were the last to arrive, because they have been out to the furthest collction points. This means they have further to travel and must leave the depot early next morning, in order to get your films back to you the next day. ( first van is out at 6am)
Each and every envelope is opened by hand, the film gets seperated from its envelope, only to be married up to that same envelope, again, later in the evening, at the other end of the building. Everything is tracked with a bar code system, a complex system, but it works!!
To process all these films individully would be impossible, so how do they do it?
Imagine those large reels of film you see the projectionist, at the cinema, handle, and that might give you a clue! Thats right they join all those individul films together, to make dozens of large reels of film. These large reels make it easier for the films to go thru the processing tanks, and there is litterally miles of film continually going thru the processing tanks.
All the machines are light tight, and only very occasionally do the lights have to put out to free perhaps a broken film. Most of the machines have an ingenious light tight glove system which allows an operator to get their hands inside a machine, and fix any problems
Once processed and dried, your film then goes to a huge printing machine which actually produces the prints. Your pictures are produced from huge reels of photographic paper, which then have to be cut to produce the individual prints. If on average you say there are 30 prints per roll of film, then multiply that by 40,000, that a lot of photographs to be sorted!! Your film & your prints arrive at a point where an operator will put your negatives, with your photographs into an envelope, which has your details on it. From here it goes to the sorting/despatch area, where it is put back into the right mailbag, to be returned to the shop where you took your film the previous day.

We were visiting the night shift, there is also a day shift, which processes a similar number of films during the day. Some customers do not require 24 hour processing, so these films are held in a queue. Some films have to processed double quick! Many London rail stations have drop off points. You can pop your film in before 10am and collect it on your way home from the office after 4pm. So the films travels by road to Newmarket, which at best takes two hours, the film has to go thru the processing system, and then taken back to the London rail stations, so that you can enjoy your photographs on your train journey home.

They do a real good job of processing films, I send quite a few of my films to be processed here and a very good job they do too here is one of a racing MG Midget

Our visit was really interesting and afterwards we were kinly served refreshments by our hosts.....

The Cambridge & District MGOC would like to than the management of 'Colourcare' for allowing us to visit and our thanks go to club members Colin & Tessa for organising it all, many thanks

Kelvin Fagan

First a welcome to a new member Dave North, who in fact came along a few months back I believe to check us out, and returned to our 'Natter Night' at the Black Horse in Dry Drayton, Nr. Cambridge to confirm his membership...Welcome!
Dave brings to the club yet another MGB roadster, Daves being of 1973 vintage and finished in White (make a change from red!!!!!!!)

We once more packed the Black Horse to bursting point, (time to find a bigger venue!!!) 22 signed our famous red book which records who has attended the meetings, though I think a few forgot to sign it this time round, there were more than 22 MG'er's at the meeting!..
Among the regular faces in the, pub and MG's in the car park, it was nice to see Andy Marshall, who has been unable to attend club meeting recently, due mainly to the pressure of work. Andy a computer graphic expert told me he had recently completed a contract for the car giants 'Peugot'. Perhaps Andy could create some graphics for the clubs web site?
Club member ' Jeremy Mustoe' was standing in for our club secretary Brian Fish, who was away on holiday (again!), I might add JM did an a fine job, definate candidate for promotion at our AGM in January.
AGM is to be held at the 'Cambridge Motel', Shepreth. which can be found on the A10 between Cambridge and Royston on Monday 19th January 1998
Please be there at 8.00pm, important decisions have to be made such as the election of a new 'club committee'. There may be some vacancies this year, so if you would like to help in the running of East Anglias premiere MG club, then please let

Not billed really as a Cambridge MGOC event, the visit to 'Safety Devices' was supported by several members of our club, (6) John & Jacqueline Deakin, Andy Marshall, Phil & Jackie Harper & myself. Other people in the group were members of the MG Car Clubs MGF Register . This was another event organised entirely via the internet & email, 11 MGF's, 2 Maestro's and their owners visited the UKs premier 'Roll Cage' manufactures 'Safety Devices' of Soham, in Cambridgeshire. The event, (not rally) started at 10am (prompt) at the premises of 'Safety Devices', a few people who had travelled a good distance from the 'North' were a few minutes late, but soon caught up, as first we were given an introduction to the company, and then shown around the facility!

We were to learn that 'Safety Devices' were working very closeley with MG & Rover, not only just in the production of the Roll Hoops for the MGF, but a full roll cage for the forthcoming MGF Racing series which is to begin in the new motorsport season of 1998

The outline of the Roll cage can be clearly seen!

Afterwards MGF owner Hamant Kumar had this to say "now knowing of the research, design, precision crafting......, and seeing the equipment used/needed I see why they are priced at that level. All roll cages are made to precision, exact precision, +-0.5 millimetres! SD even forked out for two MGF's, only to put them through a crash test and want to purchase another one for the same purpose." The unit that contained the stripped down racing MGF had all of us engrossed for 45 mins or so."

We were shown around 'all' of the production area, which was clean and could be seen to be efficent. Then we led into another workshop, and and in the words of Martin Woods ( MGF Register Archivist) "The 'piece de resistance' was the Abingdon Trophy car in it's racing colours minus it's engine and interior."

MGF Roll Cage Development
(photo courtesy of Safety Devices)
This part of the tour had all of us engrossed for 45 mins or so.!!!!!!

After the tour it was back to the vistors room for coffe and a snack, the coffee mugs we were drinking from, were Saftey Devices 25 years of service to Motorsport, limited edition mugs, which we were allowed to keep. (thankyou SD)

After coffee it was then outside for the photo shoot, and another freebie from SD a baseball cap, thankyou!....The line up of 11 MGF's was most impressive!!

With time pressing on, the call came to move on to the 'Five Miles From Anywhere, No Hurry Inn' (what a mouthful) where we we to have lunch....It certainly was five miles from anywhere, but the staff when we arrived 'did hurry' and the both the food and service was excellent!....A great place (we shall return)

After lunch, the plan was to drive back to Cambridge, where we were to decend upon 'Marshall of Cambridge' the MG dealer. A pre-prepred route was suggested to the assembled 'flock' of MG's, though this was in no way compulsary!
Until now I have neglected to mention the weather, the day had started a little damp, but the rain clouds were soon 'bown away' early, the sun came out and for our drive Cambridge, conditions were perfect, tops down in November!!!!!.
The route we follwed embraced some long, straight, & fast roads, an the odd 90 degree bend, the autumnal colours of the trees and blue skies making it even more enjoyable, an unbroken convoy of 11MGF's and an MG Maestro Turbo which had taken up at the back...quite a sight!

I don't the staff at 'Marshalls' knew quite what to make of us decending upon them, but they were happy to serve coffee, and distribute literature, I think they also managed to sell a new Mini !!...( an early christmas present for someone?)
Our thanks Marshalls!.

Here are a selection of images from the day
1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13

The Safety Devices Page
As well as the new MGF Roll Hoops, the company can produce a roll cage for your MG.
Safety Devices are sponsors of 'Classic Car Rallying', and are world leaders in their field.
When speaking to them remember to mention these pages...thankyou.

Kelvin Fagan

Newsletter Menu

Navigator

This site is maintained on behalf of the Cambridge & District MGOC
by Kelvin Fagan mg.maestro@mgcars.org.uk
Try out our Search Engine page