BBC Nationwide "On the road" series, 23/3/1976. Visits Abingdon, "a boozers paradise", covering the Old Gaol, Morris Dancing, MG works, and Mrs Didcock whistling, unfortunately end is truncated.
@@frankieknuckles9361 I have had three MG F in a row. Till today, very undervalued little roadster; things are changing, her value grew up 2.8 times since 2017. Much rarer than B, she'll have a great future in Classic cars market
Wonderful - thanks so much for sharing this! I lived in Abingdon for 33 years! So many happy memories going swimming at the Old Gaol back in the 1970’s!
A few years later they closed MG. The management of BL said there just wasn't a market for a front engined open top sports car anymore. Not long after that Mazda brought out the MX5 - a cross between an MG and a Lotus that actually worked and went round corners - and it became their best selling model. Another great British managerial success story.
The whole problem with British Leyland and its successors from its inception in 1968 to the demise of Rover in 2005, with possible exception when BMW owned it, 1994 - 2000 was that the much more viable sports / luxury car business was always sacrificed in favour of keeping the problematic volume car business e.g. Austin Morris alive in the wake of tough competition from Ford, Volkswagen, and the Japanese. That is what the government, the unions, the workforce, suppliers and British public demanded. Its why Leyland (whose cars were Luxury / Sports) were asked by the Government to take over the failing mainly volume producer BMC (Austin Morris). Yes, BMC also owned luxury / sports brands MG and Jaguar So, at the start of the 1980s why new Austin Morris models were branded as Austin Rover and then Rover, and basically Triumph and MG Marques and models were mothballed as part of then corporate strategy. It was the wrong choice, but it was the only acceptable choice to the various stakeholders. The result - putting a Rover badge on an Austin Morris car was like putting lipstick on a pig - they were ok cars, but they never had the magic of a Rover. Perhaps has the Austin Morris volume car business not being such of a strike prone basket case in the 1970s BL may have had the funds to keep its Luxury / Sports cars business going alongside the volume business. But by the start of the 1980s all the money had run out. Had Leyland not rescued BMC - then Leyland's Rover and Triumph business could have been merged to create a British BMW - with Rover making luxury saloon cars and Trumph making sports cars and sports versions of the Rover saloons. Maybe MG and Jaguar could have had viable future in this group
Remember swimming there every weekend as a child in the 1970's... Would save up my 10p coins to slot into the Asteroids and Space Invader arcade games... Sport and culture 🤓
I lived not far from Abingdon in the 70s , my friends father was a plumber who worked on the Old Gaol , he said the builders would refuse to work after dark in the area being made into the swimming pool after some builders etc said they saw a ghost of a former inmate of the Gaol on more than one occasion .
Back when we used to manufacture goods 10:46 Thank you so much Margaret Thatcher for turning the nation into a nation of shop and call centre workers. Did NOT see Amazon and internet shopping coming did we Margaret.
At 4:55 he says that "In the 18th century Abingdon said no to the railway", which of course didn't arrive until way into the 19th.The other disappointing feature of this report is the poor poquality of the BBC picture, made in 1976 but looks more like the 30s or 40s.
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American spec MGs - you can easily tell, because they had three wipers. I was lucky enough to be able to buy a 'bare' body like this when the factory closed down, stuck an engine in it and 'found' some wire wheels - and all would have been fine if I could also have found the girl in hot pants. Oh well, there were plenty of other girls looking for an open-top ride ...................
