Jones Family (Monarch and Hastings Motors) – Mark Jones

Jim Newbigin: It’s June 12th 2018. I’m at Landmark[s] recording the talk tonight of the Jones boys, and when I say the Jones boys, that’s Paul and Mark Jones and their sister Joanna, [Jackie] who are talking about Jack Jones, their father, who started off Hastings Motors, which was Monarch Motors, then Hastings Motors.

Joyce Barry: I must confess I’ve got a friend who grew up in Caroline Road which was their stamping ground, and all through her childhood she honestly did believe that – I think it might have been Jim Jones’ song he’d written in 1950′s, which was ’The Whole World’s Talking About the Jones Boys’. She was so innocent she thought that was about Paul and Mark, [laughter] ’cause they were world famous in Caroline Road, and I think their sisters were too. But it’s our great pleasure tonight – let’s get straight into it; I’d like to introduce Mark, standing; we’ve got now Paul – stand up, Paul; introduce your[self]; we have elder sister Jackie – she’s nervous; and sadly Joanna’s away at the moment and couldn’t be here, but between the three of them they’ll [be] presenting the Jones family tonight and their wonderful father, Jack. So over to you Mark. Thank you.

[Applause]

Mark Jones: Well, welcome everyone – just tell me down the back if you can’t hear me and I’ll try and adjust this thing. Thank you for coming out on such a horrible night, we just hope that you enjoy the journey with Jack Jones’ as much as we’ve enjoyed putting it together. It’s been a good fun, really.

So, Dad was born in Dartford, Kent in 1902. His father, our grandfather, was a draftsman for an architectural firm, and at the age of six they moved from Dartford to [?Strove?] Road, Wolstonbury, London. And at the age of six, Dad started school, and Jackie, I think you’re going to tell a little story about his lost money. [Chuckles]

Jackie: I always knew my father as just Dad, and my mother always called him John, never Jack. My disrespectful brothers called him ’the old man’. [Chuckles] Dad grew up in London with his family; there were six boys and one girl, Gracie. They were fairly poor really, and therefore fairly frugal. My father was born with one lazy eye and at a very young age he had to wear glasses. When he was six he traded his glasses in for a frog, [laughter] and his poor mother had to trek halfway across London to retrieve them. [Chuckles]

He recalled being sent to buy fish and chips once, one evening for the family’s tea. He was given half a crown; however, he was distracted and the half crown went rolling down the grating, never to be seen again. On his return, his mother burst into tears.

My dad had a beautiful singing voice. He was a choir boy in his local Church of England in Wolstonbury, and he also sang in St Paul’s Cathedral. And he passed that love of music on to all of us.

One thing I’ve forgotten to tell you – every Saturday night the big tin bath was brought into the kitchen … this is when he was young… filled with hot water, and the family bathed all ready for church on Sunday. [Chuckles] We used to have some great sing-songs around the piano, because we’ve all inherited that love of music from him.

Mark: Thank you, Jackie. In 1920, at the age of eighteen, Dad decided to follow his brother in[to] the merchant navy. He sailed the world. Two years later, he was back in England and decided to go again, and this time never to return. In fact, he had a younger brother who he never met.

So on his first trip he had a good look at Adelaide, and thought, ’This might be the place to jump off.’ But for some reason, and … reasons why we’re here … he decided to carry on to Auckland, and he did jump ship. So, we are aliens. [Laughter] Overstayers. He joined a firm by the name of Rio Motors, so this is where the motor business really starts. In 1925, he became a mechanic for Rio Motors in Auckland, and besides doing that he did a bit of bookkeeping, and he used to read a page of the dictionary every day, and this happened to help later in life to get him to where he got to.

In this time that he was with Rio Motors they had a publicity stunt; and they had the driver and Dad, the mechanic, drove [drive] from North Cape to the Bluff. And this is in 1925. They travelled down to Invercargill and then came back up through Hawke’s Bay. Here’s a mob of sheep coming through Hawke’s Bay; now there’s a little story attached to this – just after they got through the mob of sheep … this is all recorded in a booklet that Rio Motors did … there was the smell of smoke, and the driver thought that the engine was on fire. And they discovered that the old man, who smoked a pipe, had put his pipe in his top pocket and it was still alight, and that’s where the smoke came from. [Laughter] After his stint with Auckland, with Rio Motors, they transferred him to Hamilton, and he met this lovely lady, [shows slides] who happened to be our mother. So there was a little bit of a romance there, and then he was sent down to Palmerston North as the Manager of Rio Motors in Palmerston. Now Mum jumped out the window according to my elder sister, with a bit of help from my grandmother and her two sisters; packed a bag and said, “Quick, get after that guy; I think he’s the one for you.” [Chuckles] So she did; and Jackie and Paul were both born in Palmerston North.

In the meantime, Dad was coming up to Napier, and he was doing business with the then Mayor of Napier … fellow by the name of Hercock. [William (Bill) Hercock] And Hercock ran the Napier/Wellington Transport Company, and Dad was selling him trucks. In 1938 the local Ford dealer, Peach Motors – some of you may or may not remember – had a bit of a row with Ford, and Ford said, “Well, you’re out; we’ll get someone else to come in”. So Mayor Hercock’s son in law, Hannan, offered Dad a third shareholding in what was to become Monarch Motors. So Dad moved up to Havelock; they lived at [?Leftmill?], just beside The Strawberry Patch, and then moved into Caroline Road where they lived for the rest of their lives.

In 1940 Monarch Motors was opened. It was the site of an old movie theatre that had been demolished in the ’31 earthquake. It was wartime; it was tough going – shortage of money, shortage of cars – and Dad wasn’t eligible for overseas service because of an eye problem. So, he got together with a fellow by the name of Jack Baxter, who was a manager of the local State Picture Theatre, and they did a thing called ’The Fun Sessions’, which happened at the Municipal Theatre, and they had full houses. They were just part of an act of a variety performance.

Some years later – I think I was about twelve or thirteen – Greater Hastings over a Blossom Festival week invited the two Jacks back to do two acts, one in the first and one in the second half. And we were privileged to listen to their practise, and then saw the show; and it was … it was hilarious. Dad was always the serious guy; Jack Baxter was the fall guy. And there was just two little punch lines; the one in the first half, Dad was trying to help Jack Baxter – he’d fallen in love with Nausea Bagwash, so he was trying to see how he was going to propose to Nausea. And Dad said, “Look, you’ve got to do something like this on one knee, and say, “Nausea, you have lips like petals”, and she’ll say, “Rose petals?” And Jack Baxter said, “No, bicycle pedals”. [Laughter] So, that was that punchline. And then Jack Baxter was a patient; Dad was the doctor; Jack Baxter walked in and he said, “I’ve got the shingles”. So Dad said, “Take your shirt off”. And on Jack Baxter’s tummy in lipstick was a funny face. And down in the orchestra pit there was a bloke on the drums; and Jack Baxer used to roll his stomach. The spotlight was right on him, and Dad examined him and said. “No, you’re all right, but where do you think you’ve got the shingles?” He said ‘I’ve got them in the truck out in the yard”, he said, “they’ve been in your driveway”. [Laughter] So that was their thing; so that’s what they did.

[Shows more slides] Now this is younger Joanna’s christening; so that’s elder Jackie and brother Paul. Now you can see that look on my face; and I happened to be holding Paul’s toy pistol, and he was a bit pissed off [chuckles] because he wanted it back and I wasn’t going to give it to him. But I think after the photo was taken, and the – see the look on Paul’s face – I didn’t have the pistol for very long. [Laughter] Actually, I was a bit stink to Paul in those days, and he sort of had to sort of get on top of me at times; and he did once; he said, “Look”, he said, “you’re not actually part of this family”. [Chuckles] He said, “You were left on the doorstep in a sack”. [Chuckles] And he said, “Mrs [??] – she had you; and Mrs [??] had twelve children. And I did need counselling for a year or so after that. [Laughter] Anyway, we got over that.

So, Dad loved golf; his whole life was around golf, and there’s a competition that Jim Newbigin would know … the Jones’ Four Ball, which I think … the Newbigin Foursome’s still going, but the Jones’ Four Ball’s one of the longest competitions still running out at Bridge Pa. So that’s the Golf Club Committee in 1960 – that’s Dad on the end, Doug Grieve, Ray Cashmore … Doctor Cashmore … Les Fisher, an accountant, Eric Anderson; and there’s a tall fellow at the back, Tubby Campbell, and Frank Coles … good on you, Richard. And I think there’s two more, Richard – d’you know who they are? Doug McIvor, that’s right, and Jack Nichol I think. Right, that’ll do. [Chuckles] Yeah, and they’re all smoking – look at them.

Yeah.

Okay, so there’s three generations, that’s Paul, and son Tim, and Tim’s two boys.

Now, in 1953 there were three great things that happened in the world. There was the Queen’s Coronation, Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest, and Jack Jones gave that seat to the Hastings Golf Club. [Chuckles] So that’s why they’re sittting on it, and there’s a plaque, ‘J W Jones 1953’, and that’s still there today on the fifth tee.

So – Blossom Parades – Monarch Motors were always there; sister Joanna remembers making thousands of crepe paper flowers for that.

Okay. Now this is sort of the first big development that happened at the end of Queen and Hastings Street[s]. Our showroom was on Heretaunga Street opposite Hutchinsons. So, Dad and his foresight – whenever anything came for sale in and around – the dealership came from Heretaunga Street to there. There used to be an old walnut tree; I remember as a kid picking up walnuts. That’s the Regent picture theatre, or the Westend it was, there. So he bought houses; there were I think about seven, and he jumped the road as well. And then there was an old barn of a place; it was a second hand bottle store … it might’ve been something else before then. But that development, we built this workshop out to here, [shows on slide] cleared all that there, and then we jumped the road for the first time and had a used car operation on the corner. And next door to that was a tractor and truck workshop, and then Caltex moved in – you might remember driving in there and buying some petrol. And that was the frontage. That’s waving at Hutchie across the road; I don’t think Hutchie was there in those days. We didn’t need him there anyway. [Chuckles] We got him later. [Chuckles]

Brian Hutchinson: You’re a lucky man! [Laughter]

Mark: Okay. So that’s the show home [room] in ‘56; you can see the Mark I Zephyr there. So that’s when you know, you remember you had to have overseas funds to buy a new car? Oh, they were good days weren’t they?

Now this picture … Joanna would’ve introduced this tonight … unfortunately can’t be here. This is in front of our beach house in Haumoana and really, she wanted you to reflect on the sand. Now Paul and I used to play cricket on that beach; this is down in front of our … well, it’s halfway between Haumoana and Te Awanga. We’ll show you another picture in a minute – it’ll blow you away. But the old man, he loved fishing, and he would go further down the beach towards Clifton. He wouldn’t quite go into Clifton because old Wes Stanley who owned Clifton camping ground, he charged a shilling to go in there. So Dad and his mates would stop just at the entrance of the camping ground; and they called it Poor Man’s Point. So – now that’s why we’re glad that Joanna’s not sitting on the beach at the moment; that’s taken just last year. That’s our old beach house and I’m not sure if it’s there this afternoon after the storm last night, but its disappearing.

Right – 1967; well at this time, Dad took a step back and Hastings Motors was … born? That’ll do. But we purchased the shareholding of the Napier people, Hercock & Hannan, and we became Hastings Motors. Paul was appointed as the Ford dealer; he was the youngest Ford dealer and I think probably has still been the youngest Ford dealer ever appointed – he was twenty-nine years of age.

I’ll just tell you a little story. Our first show, ‘cause we had a show; Dad and I were at the show. We’d only been in business since February, and we had a couple of drinks sitting at … it used to be in the boot of the car … with clients and so on, and we ended up at the pie cart which was opposite the Police Station; it was getting a bit late. And Dad had mortgaged Caroline Road to help the boys get into the business. And I said to Paul, “That mortgage on Caroline Road, I’d like to get rid of that in a couple of years.” And Paul looked at me in the eye and he said, “We’ll do it in one.” And we did.

So we moved on from there. Dad in his foresight – he saw the potential that two boys could come into the business, so Paul went overseas in ‘58 to ‘60, and attended … it was a Ford Dealers’ Course, with Ford. I followed in ‘64-’65, and it sort of gave us a grounding into the motor business, so away we went from there. We continued to buy land; we’d already been across the road, and we were still doing stuff. We had a staff of nearly sixty at one stage – very loyal. Most of them stayed with us for their working lives. Two that we’re very proud of … two salesmen we employed; one is now the Dealer Principal of Bay Ford in Hastings, and John Clark is the Dealer Principal in Dannevirke. And several of our staff met and married, so yeah, it was a happy family, really. It was good.

And one of the other things that we did which a lot of local businesses did in those days; we supported and looked after special needs people, one of who [whom] worked with us for twenty-five years. Yeah – Dave Whittaker …

Comment: He wasn’t special needs. [Laughter]

Mark: He wasn’t special needs, no. No, he wasn’t special needs; he was a very special person. Yeah.

So this was all the advertising that we did … newspaper; I mean, some of you might remember. Actually you were very lucky if … I mean we advertised once a week with these photos; when our mother was alive she bought all the papers, [chuckles] so you might not’ve actually got a paper on the night [chuckles] because she loved her little boys. [Chuckles]

So, working with Paul we did a lot of advertising in the paper, but we also did a lot of radio advertising. And some of you might remember a DJ called David Mahoney; and Mahoney and Paul became very close friends. And Dave Mahoney would play our ad and then he would chip in … voice over … and say, “Listen, you must get down to Hastings Motors and see the tall dwarf. [Chuckles] Has he got a deal for you! You’ve got to see Paul Jones, the tall dwarf”. [Chuckles] So I was in the showroom one day, and this fellow came in and I said, “How can I help you?” And he said, “Look, I’m terribly embarrassed; I haven’t come to buy a car, but”, he said, “my wife heard your ad this morning. She said. ‘you’ve got to get in there and tell me how big is this guy – I want to know how tall he is.’” And he said, “Would it be all right?” I said, “Yeah, just a minute.” So I whipped into Paul’s office, quickly told Paul what the story [was], so Paul said, “Give me a minute.” So … went out and said, “He’s just on the phone, he won’t be long.” A minute later I said, “Come on in.” In the meantime Paul had tipped his chair behind his desk and was kneeling on the floor, so when the guy walked in all he could see was Paul’s shoulders and his head. [Laughter] And the bloke walked in and Paul said, “Good morning!” And the bloke looked down, and he shook hands and he looked at me and he said, “Jeez, he’s small isn’t he? I’ve got to go home and tell her.” [Laughter] And with that he walked out.

Have you got something to say?

Paul Jones: That’s not all true, by the way, [chuckles] and I can’t let that pass. In 1988 we opened our new dealership building. Mark’s office was at the end of the showroom; and two new phones we purchased – a black one and a white one. A chap entered the new showroom, and Mark was keen to make a good impression, so he picked up the phone before he beckoned the chap into his office: “ … and make sure those cars are delivered by Friday, otherwise things could be not be so good for us.” [And he] let him go. And Mark turned to the fellow, and he said, “How can I help you?” And the chap said, “I don’t really know”, he said, “I’ve come to connect your phones.” [Laughter] D’you know I’ve been rehearsing that for a week? [Laughter] I still can’t get it right. [Laughter; applause]

Mark: Okay. Well sadly, on this high note, Dad’s journey finally ended. In February 1973 he passed away in Royston Hospital, but before that, when he was fit and well and getting into older age, he always said to Paul and I, “You know, when I go, I want to be on the first tee at Bridge Pa, and I want to knock one down the middle and [clicks fingers] … I want to go, just like that.” So the night he died I had happened to be sitting with him; his eyes were closed and he said, “Are you there son?” and I said, “I am, Dad.” And he said, “Do you know where I am?” I said, “Where are you, Dad?” He said, “I’m on the first tee, and I’ve just hit one down the middle.” So I knew it was time to say goodbye. So that was the end of Dad’s journey.

During this time the vehicle market was booming, we were selling over a hundred vehicles alone to J Wattie Canneries … you remember when everything was going around Hawke’s Bay? And it was all good. In fact, just a quick story: we said to Watties … we got their business away from Stewart Greers, [chuckle] and old Ed Greer wasn’t very happy about that, ‘cause he and Jim Wattie were quite good mates. Anyway, we managed to get it, and we said to Watties, “Look, we’ll deliver anywhere in New Zealand free of charge at a moment’s notice.” Well, we got it tested. Monday morning they rang and said, “We’ve written a vehicle off in Christchurch, and we want it replaced by four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.” It was an Escort van. We were scratching our heads; how do we get across Cook Strait? So Ivan Hocking, our Sales Manager at the time, said, “There’s an outfit in Wellington called Safe Air; they fly Bristol freighters. Why don’t we get hold of them and see what they can do for us?” Well, we rang them; they said, “If you can get down here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning we’ll get you to Blenheim, and you’ll be on you’ll be on your way to Christchurch and you’ll be there by four o’clock.” Right. So up I get at sparrows in the morning – and I’m not too good at that – and down to Wellington; jumped on this Bristol freighter, and we delivered the vehicle at four o’clock, and I flew back the next day. And Wattie’s never tested us again. [Laughter]

At that time, Ford Motor Company as you’re probably aware, there was an assembly industry going on – CKD cars and all that stuff, and then of course that all went; and then built-up cars coming into the country and things started to change. You know, the Japanese used cars and all that sort of happened.

But there was a fortuitous phone call, and I’m glad he’s here tonight. Craig Morgan rang Paul one day – Morgan Builders? Craig – and said, “Paul, would you be interested in selling half your dealership?” And Paul said, quick as a flash, “No, but I would be interested in selling it all, from Queen Street to Heretaunga Street.” And Craig said, “I’ll get back to you.” Well, just a week or two later Craig rang and said, “Now listen; this is … you can’t say a word about this, but there’s a developer from Palmerston North …” I think his name’s Graham Lindsay from Access Developments, and they wanted our land. So we had to do a bit of a … here it is here. That’s the finished article, but to get there was quite a feat. We had to negotiate with Chas Bone, the plumber who was next door to us. We couldn’t tell him what was going on but we made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, so we took his building. We then dealt with Geenty Walsh [&] Partners – I don’t know if you remember, they had a very nice little single storey building across the road from us. A little story there to get that; we’d gone unconditional on that without thinking properly, and … for $300,000; this was in 1987. Initially we’d bought a block of land down on the other side of the expressway, between the expressway and Oak Avenue; two and a half acres which we were going to put a tractor and truck workshop on, but thank goodness, we didn’t. And there’s a bloke by the name of David Dine … David (Dozy) Dine, Jim … played cricket for Marist; and he was the Caltex rep. [Representative] And I took David down and I said, “Look, we want to sell this, would you be interested?” And he knew the expressway; he said, “I’ll ring Wellington.” Two days later two suits arrived from Wellington and they said, “What’s the story?” We showed them; they said, “How much do you want for it?” We said, “$300,000.” “When do you want it?” We said, “By the end of the week.” Yeah, and it was all done.

And then we dealt with dear old Nessie King – remember old Nessie, Frank Crisp’s mother-in-law? Dear lady. And so she came into the equation; we bought her house and she moved into a flat. And then the tractor workshop that we had, we sold that to Clearview … Tim Turvey; and I don’t think Tim ever paid for it, but whenever Paul and I go out there for a meal we get a free bottle of wine, so we didn’t do too badly. And then I think our Used Car office – at one stage it went to Okawa Cricket Club; they used it as a pavillion, and then I think it ended up on Moffat Orchard. Is that still there, Johnny?

Johnny Moffat: Yes.

Mark: There you go. He hasn’t paid for that, either. [Laughter]

So Paul and I carried on with Rotary and did our community thing. I was president of Karamu Rotary back in ‘80-’81. And then Paul was the Chairman of the Ford New Zealand Dealer Council, which was quite a prestigious appointment. And he did a fantastic job … two years? And he happened to be in Sydney with the Ford New Zealand team, and met Henry Ford II and his son, Edsel. Now Ford Motor Company were going through a bit of a tough time; brother Paul had two shares in Ford Motor Company World, and he received a dividend cheque for $5.63. [Chuckles] So when he was on the podium, he called up Henry Ford and said, “Look, I know you’re going through tough times; I’m not going to cash this dividend cheque – I’d like you to have it back.” [Chuckles] And it brought the house down. Yeah. [Chuckles]

So we sold the business back in 1998. We retained the land and buildings. We did business with the current dealer, Bay Ford, and then they relocated down to Stortford Lodge and we then sold the land and buildings, and it’s now the business hub that you see on the corner of Hastings Street and Queen Street.

So, all I’d like to finish up with is to say to my brother, “You were a great guy to work for.” Oh, choking up there … “And I know it was a journey we both enjoyed and survived, and with the help of our wives and families. I’m not saying we didn’t have our differences of opinions at times but we got over them very quickly.” [Applause]

I hope you enjoyed the journey with Jack Jones. I’d firstly like to say thank you to Jackie and Joanna, who isn’t here; but specifically to Tim Jones for his help. [Applause]

Thank you.

Joyce: Any questions?

Comment: I’ve got a little comment. Our old man bought a ‘67 Mark IV. You probably don’t want to hear about Mark Ivs, do you, anymore?

Paul: Hey, you haven’t paid for that either! [Laughter]

Reply: I think we’ve paid for it one or two times over. They had a history of rattling a bit, didn’t they? And I took it in and Jim Ellis got somebody to look at it, and I went back and picked it up, bought it home, and it was still rattling as bad as ever. And I rang Jim up, and he said, “You can’t have everything!”

Joyce: Any more questions? David Kimms, old mate …

Question: I’ll keep this as brief as I can because I’ve been friends of the Jones family for seventy-six years. It’s actually a great privilege for me to stand here, and first of all I’m just going to address this to Mark. Very, very well done, Mark. [Applause] It’s a serious character building exercise with the Jones family, and I would like Mark tell us one question of you, Mark: “Have you ever been tied to a tree [chuckles] in the forest and left there?” [Chuckles]

Mark: Well the answer’s yes, [?]. [Chuckles]

Question: Right, well, can you answer then, how long were you were left tied to the tree?

Mark: How long’s this question going to go on for? [Laughter] ‘Cause it was quite a long time, and I didn’t really enjoy it. But I know it was another one of those days when I’d peed him off, and I kept following him around everywhere. And Mum had gone to the supermarket to get some groceries and when she came home I was tied up to a tree. [Laughter]

Comment: So he was rescued by his mother. Unusual indeed. Well – and Paul and I played a lot of sport together, cricket etcetera, etcetera, on their front lawn which Jack was meticulous about. It was a putting green, and every blade of grass was polished. And there was one occasion when … we were studying chemistry at the time … and we had an Andrews Liver Salts tin in which there were some sulphurs, and potassium nitrate and charcoal. And we lit this and put the lid on to see if the lid blew off as gun powder. Well, it didn’t, but there was quite a conflagration … put it that way … and it left a very black mark on Jack’s putting green, [chuckles] which I have to say he wasn’t very happy about. We played lots of cricket and all this on this lawn, and I was batting this particular time and I hit the ball to the outfield, and I ran for the run. And I was going to easily get there, because somebody else in the field hadn’t quite got to the ball. But all of a sudden Paul hit a ball out and took the bales off; he had a ball in his pocket, [laughter] and I got run out. And could I argue against him? Well, the family know this story of course, in that we had pistols. Paul was the first in this forest to have a metal pistol that went bang! And all the rest of us had wooden ones, you know. But when you were shot, you had to die and count to twenty; and then you came alive. Well, wheewh! “Jones, you’re shot!” He said, “Oh no, I’m not counting to twenty; you missed.” [Laughter] It was really a character building exercise for everybody, I’m quite sure, to see the antics that went on within the family. They were a great family, and the girls of course were just gorgeous. [Chuckle] And it’s been an absolute privilege for us and our families and friends to be associated with the Jones family.

Joyce: Well Done, David. Any more comments?

Comment: I’d just like to say I’ve learned a lot from the Joneses, and bought several cars, and of course – look at the smile on the dial. You know, selling is an exchange of trust, and that’s what I would say they were the epitiome of. We enjoyed over many years, trucks and cars and vans and bits and pieces. Thanks very much.

Joyce: I think their sociability, their social consciences … they’ve all done a lot in the community. They really have, more than many of you will realise. They knew how to marry the right people. [Chuckles] They’ve been great and I’ve got one tiny little story: David and I’ve been very lucky to have you for friends since we hit Hastings, in that we came back here; we knew a few in our fratenity but we didn’t know many outsiders that way. And we were asked along to a very nice dinner and there was a lovely group of people there, and for us it was lovely to meet a whole group of people that weren’t connected to our specialty too; so it was nice meeting outsiders. Anyway, we came back from Britain absolutely skint; we had nothing, except we did keep hold of our old Cortina. And we’d worn it out on London roads, and of course they put salt on the roads in winter there, so everything gets rotted in the cars in Britain, in those days. So we bought this thing home; we had to get the whole motor reconditioned ‘cause we couldn’t afford a new one; we were driving along and the absolute whole radiator fell on the road. So we went to this little dinner, but we didn’t know that someone from Ford Motors was at the dinner. And boy did they thieve that story from us! And sitting right next to us was Paul. But anyway guys, haven’t they been great? And they’ve been a great family for the community and I think we’re privileged to know them, and to know that there’s several locals come along as well. So thank you, everyone, for coming.