From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Copy of a letter from Major C.B. Northey detailing a problematic car journey through France.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 46\2\ Scan383 | |
| Date | 6th August 1922 | |
| COPY OF LETTER FROM MAJOR C.B. NORTHEY. Ditteridge House, Box, WILTSHIRE. Aug. 6th. 1922. My dear Percy, I am home again after a most interesting and enjoyable time in France with the Goshawk, and I must thank you very much indeed for it all. As luck would have it I was very seedy the first three days, but better afterwards. This is a rough idea of what happened. Major Hodges was very late in getting to Boulogne on Saturday, and it was about 11 a.m. Sunday before the car was handed over to me and ready to carry on. It rained all Sunday and I had a beastly drive to St.{Capt. P. R. Strong} Omer, Armentier, Lille, La{L. A. Archer} Basse, Loos, Lens, Vimy and Arras, where we slept, the roads were vile and impossible to do any fast work, and the tyres punctured and were badly cut. We then went on to Bapaume, Albert, Amiens Soissons, Mort Notre Dame, and slept at Rheims ( what ruins) & more tyre trouble. Tyres by this time were so bad that I decided to go to the Garage outside Paris which Hodges told me to go to and get in touch with the R.R. This I did and a R.R. was sent for me and I went and had a long talk with Parsons & Thomas who took over from me yesterday; they fitted me with new tyres and tubes and sent me to the Hotel Mount-Fleuris. Things were costing so much more than I had thought, I had wired to Bath to send money to Boulogne for me. I told Thomas this and he suggested and advised that I should take an advance from them and they would debit London. This I did and a most charming old Frenchman, who wished to be remembered to you I dont remember his name, pressed a thousand Francs on me; he wanted me to take more, but I thought that would be enough. I hope I acted rightly in this. On Wed: we went West to a place called Caen in Normandy, tyre trouble, and what was worse one of the joints between engine & exhaust pipe blew out. I had no new washers & could not take exhaust pipe down on the road, so I had to carry on and the work was done at Caen, where we slept. We then went on to Honfleur, Rouen & Beauvais, of course more tyre trouble & about 20 miles out of Beauvais I noticed the Dynamo was not charging. I looked over things, fuses, etc. and found everything O.K. so went on. St.{Capt. P. R. Strong} Beauvais I took car to garage and had Dynamo taken down, to begin with it was so hot one could hardly touch it, one of the | ||