ThamesMog
Secretary's Report February 2000

Over the Christmas period I learnt with great shock and sadness of the premature death of a great friend of the Morgan Marque and of the Morgan Sports Car Club, as well as a personal friend of Thames Valley Centre, Arthur Neal. I would like to include in this month’s report some memories from Chris Rowe.

"When I first joined the Morgan Sports Car Club and Reading Centre in January 1975, Arthur was the Chairman of both. As the Centre Representative and later as the ‘Miscellany’ Editor, I took turns with Arthur to drive to National Committee Meetings. The day would start by meeting Arthur in his house, which he was restoring himself. He would show me his latest problem in the house or with one of his cars or vintage boats and how he had set about solving it. Arthur was a great solver of problems – not just his own, for he would stop at nothing to help others. He was that sort of man.

Arthur was often to be found competing in MCC long distance trials and production car trials in his 1948 Series 1 4-4 four seater, ‘Millie’. In fact he gave to the Club the ‘Millie Trophy’ for the Best Performance of the Year in a Series 1. He made a ‘mini-moke’ look-a-like which I attended some Committee Meetings in.

We would travel open even when the snow was banked above the car. Now if you have been in a Series 1, two people in great coats have to be very good friends and take turns to breathe. On one particular trip I recall saying to him, "Arthur – don’t want to make a fuss but something black, hot and sticky is wee-ing through the footboards onto my trouser bottoms!" Arthur pulled over and stopped the car. He opened the nearside bonnet half, and with his familiar pipe wedged between his lips he puffed a shower of sparks into the engine bay, spotted the broken oil union on the side of the block, dug into his tool and oddment box and effected the repair."