I mentioned the swinging 60’s in one of my stories, this reminded me of the UFO club and that fateful day.  This was right in the middle of the 60’s and I and a couple of mates and my future wife, Angela, decided to pop up to the infamous UFO club in Tottenham Court Road in swinging London.  Although this road  leads to north London, the club itself was just off Oxford St. and around the corner from the Post Office tower.  In those days you could dine in the tower - that was before the IRA made it too dangerous.  But we did enjoy some pleasant times up there going round in circles.  Mind you, the revellers at the UFO club spent many an hour going around in circles but for a different reason.  Anyway on with the story.  I had collected the gang in my beautiful Riley 4/68 - possibly my most memorable vehicle - and proceeded north to Central London.  Unfortunately I had just had an engine rebuild and ,all of a sudden, we lost most of the water in a cloud of steam.  Luckily we were literally outside of a Shell garage and we limped on to the forecourt.  We asked the mechanics at the garage what could we do but frankly they weren’t very helpful.  I was dressed in my  finest Psychedelic gear but nonetheless I Proceeded to investigate the problem.  To seal the water jacket they used some small circular convex plates which they bashed into the engine.  One of these had popped out, but luckily was still there.  But, it was right at the back of the engine near the bulkhead.  So how to get it back in without going back to the engine shop, and still visit the UFO?  I had a flash, I bashed a hole in the floorboards right near the clutch and lined up a drift with the centre of the disc placed strategically in the hole from wence it came and gave it a few prized belts.  It took quite a few minutes before I was satisfied it was lodged home but it seemed to be ok.  I borrowed some swarfega, cleaned myself up and proceeded to the UFO club.  We got there about midnight but it didn’t really kick off until that time anyway.  it wasn’t a Pink Floyd night but we saw them a number of times after that anyway.  it was a great experience.  The crowd were all virtually hippies and most of them were 8 miles high.  The evening also included a “happening”  which was basically a huge fabric snake into which the revellers climbed and danced around the room - all 60 feet of it.  We never went back but in those days you visited as many venues as you could manage.  It was a great evening if only a little bizarre.  The metal slug held up for about two months and eventually popped out again but I took it back to the engine shop and had a new one fitted.  The car took me through a number of years and eventful holidays until a Danish Drunk  bent it out of shape in Munich - it still lasted a year more but it was a bit sad looking at the end.  That remind me of another story.

 Before closing completely and talking about UFO’s,  it has also reminded me of the nights in Wingham when Paul and I , independently, saw a number of UFO”s.  We were and are convinced they were real and I actually saw another bunch years later.  Perhaps they were looking for the UFO club as well?

This is me with our budgie - Bobby.    When we left to go back to England, my sister - Pat.  Took care of him in London, Ontario.   We came back to Canada just a few weeks later and repossessed our Bobby.  it was winter and quite cold.  We carried him through the streets right down Dundas St to where we were staying at the time.  A flat above a restaurant.  He was a lovely, lively bird always greeting you with a song.    Just a couple of  weeks later he dropped dead on his perch.  The trip through the cold had simply been too much for the poor little bird.  The whole family sat down and cried.  Even my Dad.