My Life & Times in the Motor Trade by David Grimes

Normally we see David with his sets of slides, but this time it was going to be different He came into the meeting, put a chair on the stage, sat down and made himself comfortable. He had been asked to come and ramble on [for about 3 hours he said] about how he got into engineering.

His Headmaster saw that he wasn't interested in sport so allowed him to make electrical bits & pieces instead. His early innovations include illuminated signs for the Science Lab, stop lights and indicators on his bike which were the envy of his school mates and providing useful income when he made them some of the same. His family home did not have electricrty so he constructed a water wheel and later a wind generator to provide electricity to light the house.

David and his family lived on the Sandringham Estate where his father was a footman to King George VI. He decided that he was not interested in following his father, he was more interested in nuts & bolts. On leaving school he went to work in a local garage. David explained that in those times you had to be an engineer able to strip and rebuild engines, gearboxes etc nowadays it is just a case taking out the broken one and replacing it with one from the stores.

David decided to have a break from the motor trade and joined the RAF where he found himself a job in RAF Coastal Command servicing high speed rescue launches. On completion of his time in the RAF he returned to a motor firm in Kings Lynn making a good business in repairing crashed cars by joining the good front end of one with the good back of another or vica-versa. A method called cut and shut now very illegal.

David then went on to start up on his own and built up a thriving business, all his work coming in on personal recommendation - he never advertised.

(There is much more to David Grime, than this but space precludes, the more detailed report I got....Ed)

Thank you David from all of us for sharing some of your memories.

Dorothy Nash