A few miles away from my village is small tourist attraction called Pakenham Water Mill which is the oldest surviving flour mill in Suffolk, where once there were many. The Pakenham watermill has been around for almost a thousand years, and for all that time millers on this site have been using the simple technology of water power to produce stone-ground wholemeal flour for local people. The mill is currently owned today by Historic Suffolk, a team of around fifty dedicated volunteers continues to look after the mill, machinery and grounds for this long tradition. There is a tea room and a little shop too.
The grounds on the day were populated with a tent full of home made cake stalls, a mini bar, and a BBQ area. I was hoping to by some local made bread from the mill, unfortunately they didn’t have any on the day.
The event was billed as starting at eleven, but I wasn’t sure if that was the public entry or arrival time for the cars. I took the time as being the public entry thus allowing us exhibitors to get ourselves organised. I woke up early before the alarm, the the dogs decided that sticking one of their little paws in my mouth would be a good way to let me know that they wanted to go out. I packed the cool bag for the day as well as the factor fifty as it was going to be a hot one with the sun being out for the whole day. I had a gentle cruise to the event just a mere twenty minutes away and pulled into the entrance. Nobody was about, but a minute or so later the rumble of my exhaust must have alerted a marshal to come over and he advised me that I was very early. The event was due to start at eleven, for both the public and the exhibitors. I was shown to a slightly elevated area for the show cars.
I was parked next to an MGB V8 which was owned by one of the volunteers. As he walked away I decided to move my car to another more scenic part of the field to take some pictures before the field got busy, which wouldn’t be for another half hour or so yet.
After my impromptu photo session i moved back to where I was initially told to park. The main hard standing parking area that I parked on last year was this time reserved for the pre war vehicles, the rest of the classic cars were going to be up where I was located. Many of the exhibitors like myself turned up around ten and were swiftly parked up in rows near to me. This is a small local show with only around fifty cars or so, more of a social meet of a local car owners.
The pre war section was well supported, more than I expected to be there.
Throughout the day there were exhibitors coming and going.
There was the steam model guys riding up and down, one of the engines had his lunch packed in the front boiler part, a few jacket potatoes filling the air with an amazing smell which made me hungry.
The sun was brutal, I had the factor fifty slapped on all over the place, but there was no shade. I wasn’t going to complain, far from it. I eventually sat down and had some lunch and a long cool drink watching the world walk buy.
I was greeted by a couple of friends I have known from the car shows in the past and a couple of members from the Bury Retro Car Club. I was taken back to a good few years to my first car show at the Birmingham NEC when I was on the Mustang Owners Club stand. A gentleman approached me and reminded me that he spoken to me way back then at that show. I even let his girlfriend sit in my car on the day he informed me, I had forgotten that little detail. The guy still follows my little ol’ blog and I was very humbled by the fact that he took time out to come and meet me again, we spoke for a little while and that conversation alone made my day. I’m terrible with names, I will admit it. I apologise to anybody in advance if I have forgotten your name when you come to speak to me, I put it down to my old age.
As I was editing (crop and resizing) this batch of photos, I decided to play around a little with the colours; the original, a straight forward black and white, sepia, and a hand tinted cream version. Let me know if these photos are improvement or not. I kinda like the bottom cream tinted one.
Another good day, even if I did unnecessarily sacrifice a Sunday lay in. A pretty well organised day and knowing that the £5 entrance fee has gone to the upkeep of the water mill and not in somebody’s greedy pocket.
