In 1967, soon after Richard acquired his first car, a 2nd hand green Morris Minor, we travelled extensively at weekends and during holidays on trainspotting and photographing trips. Sunday April 2nd, 1967 turned out to be rather more eventful than most of our trips. This was one of our many "shed bashing" trips from that period. We went with 3 of my school friends to West Yorkshire and visited the locomotive depots at Stourton, Holbeck, Hammerton Street, Manningam, Low Moor, Normanton, Royston and Wakefield. Very unusually we had taken the trouble to apply for permits in advance. On the return journey the car developed a nasty engine noise and the temperature gauge rose rapidly. We had to stop in Tadcaster and called the AA out at about 8pm. A failed water pump was diagnosed and we were towed to a garage in York. We managed to get a train to Darlington and, I imagine, the last Saltburn train, arriving home at 11.15pm.

As Mum and Dad (who was called DRT by our friends) had no phone in those days, Richard had rung our neighbours to tell them of the problem and that we were returning by train and would be late. When we finally got home, we found Mum and Dad in a terribly emotional and confused state. It appeared that the message which had been passed on was that there had been an incident and only Richard was coming home. I imagine that it was an elderly person who had got the wrong end of the stick. It seems that Dad, being the extreme and irrational worrier that he was, had convinced himself and then Mum that there had been a severe car crash and I had been killed! So, when I arrived in my normal casual manner, there were floods of tears and great relief. Richard and I couldn't see what all the fuss was about or how they had worried themselves into such a state and we were quite amused by it all! Richard's diary recorded the incident with typical minimalism "Panic at home". This anecdote has been recounted with great mirth over the decades - one of the many DRT-based classics! How John returned from the dead!

The following evening, Richard, accompanied by Dad (to look after him!) went by train to collect the car. Surprisingly, for someone so organised, Richard didn't have enough money on him and apparently Dad didn't either. Credit cards perhaps hadn't been invented in those days. Luckily Dad had friends (Geoff and Margaret Anderton) in York, to whom they caught a bus. After a snack Geoff took them to the garage in his car and lent the necessary money, so Richard and Dad got home that evening in the car.

I seem to remember that the incident caused so much parental upset and anxiety that both Mum and Dad tried hard to stop us from doing these trips but we carried on regardless and without further incident. Only 3 weeks later Richard and I set off on our most ambitious and exciting trip yet: a 1318-mile trainspotting and sightseeing tour of Scotland, our first visit to the west coast and the Highlands and back down the east coast. See a photo I took at that time.