South Yorkshire Times January 23rd 1965
FROM A CAR TO A GARAGE
Two of a kind – that’s the best description of Roy Walton and Gerald Stocks, joint partners in Conisbrough’s new Northcliffe Motor Company.
At least that’s the description that best fits the facts about these two motor engineers, who founded their partnership not ten years ago, over the bits and pieces of a crashed motor cycle, an invalid carriage and an old Ford, and have now ended up “building” almost literally with their own bare hands a service station and garage second to none.
But that represents an awful lot of water under an awful lot of bridges, so let’s take it step by step, nice and easy, starting with the men themselves. Who are they?
Roy Walton is 30 years old. He is an auto-electrician by trade – in other words he deals with electricity in cars – and lives at 72, Elm Green Lane, Conisbrough. He is married with three children. Mr. Walton likes fishing, performance cars, and has done some ski-ing.
Gerald Stocks is 36, an automobile engineer by trade. He lives at 63, Harlington Road, Mexborough, and is married. He likes fishing , performance cars, motor cycles and ski-ing.
ALL FROM A CRASH
Two men, brethren by trade and by character, it seems. Here the story begins with a “crash”. Mr. Walton explains: “It all started some years ago when Gerald and I were working for the same firm in Doncaster. A chappie we knew fell off his motor bike and smashed it up. After a little bit of talk he agreed to sell it to us, and we in turn decided to build a car. And that’s where our friendship began.”
The “car” took five years to complete, using parts from the motorcycle – a Velocette – the back end of an A.C. Petit invalid carriage, and the front suspension from an old Ford. The body took two years to prepare, from a combination of chicken wire, paper maché, tent fabric and marine glue – of such stuff is friendship made! The whole lot was held together by copper tubing, and exists to this day; a sort of memorial really.
Naturally enough – probably during the souping up of a 1938/39 Ford 8 – the two men considered going into business.
“It was a matter of years before the opportunity occurred, then we got this piece of land,” explained Mr. Walton.
“This piece of land” is three quarters of an acre or so off Doncaster Road, Denaby Main. It was formerly occupied by allotments, but in April last year the pigeons and cabbages moved out, and a bulldozer moved in.
TEN MONTHS OF TOUGH WORK
In the past ten months, Mr. Walton and Mr. Stocks, who became “self-employed” in July, have sweated and strained through all the back-breaking work of completing their filling station. They called in bricklayers, plasterers and joiners for the skilled jobs, but have done all the labouring themselves, and that has included laying about 120 cubic yards of concrete – heavy stuff – and even installing the petrol pumps themselves.
What is more, they even planned the building, and were thus able to cater for their own requirements and preferences, helped by one expert – Gerald’s brother, Mr. Cyril Stocks, A.1. Mech. Eng.
“I would like to say how obliging absolutely everybody has been,“ emphasised Mr. Walton. “In particular the people of Denaby. We’ve thought nothing of asking some passers-by for help with a spot of heavy work. Even the kids have helped out, and the sum total of damage during the operations has been one broken window.”
Mr. Stocks added, “We have also been particularly pleased with the people who have supplied building materials – Payne’s of Doncaster, Allen and Orr of Hexthorpe, Glenstone Quarries, and Quallbeck of Wath, and we’ve had terrific help with advice and co-operation from Shell Mex and B.P. Ltd, and their representative Mr. Y.L.S Tribble.
“Conisbrough Urban Council too have done everything they could to help since the plans were passed,” he added.
So now the garage and filling station of the Northcliffe Motor Company is complete, a handsome structure really, in natural grey brick, spacious, well lit and well equipped.
WORKSHOPS AND SHOWROOMS
As a physical mass, the Northcliffe motor Company consists of 1,500 square feet of workshop space, 400 square feet of showroom, and a further 500 square feet of storage space.
The workshop offers all the modern facilities one would expect of a service station bearing the Shell sign in the year 1965. These include the latest in Bradbury car lifts – electro-hydraulic.
Perhaps the best feature of the Bradbury is that although the car is driven onto the twin ramps, it can be supported so that the wheels are free. So there are no accidents jacking a car up while it is on the lift.
The workshops also have an “old-fashioned” pit, favoured by many mechanics for working under a car.
Northcliffe Motor Company are already agents for Rootes Group cars and for the Dunlop Approved Tyre Scheme. Application has been made for MoT vehicle testing facilities.
EVERYTHING THROUGH US
As Rootes agents, Messrs. Walton and Stocks are pretty well unique in this area, and they claim they can supply most of the ‘stock’ Rootes cars quicker than it takes to say ”crown wheel and pinion”.
“And everything can be done through us,” said Mr. Walton, “including hire purchase and insurance.”
For these two partners, things are just beginning to hum. They plan to offer a continually improving service to their customers as the years go by, particularly with the accent on personal service. For them the Northcliffe Motor Company has been, and is, a way of life, and though their partnership and endeavour may seem to have little to do with you the customer, in the end it is aimed at satisfying you the customer, and what can be better than that?
Mr. Walton concluded, significantly: ”We’ve developed an understanding over the years. We never bottle anything up – we sit down and talk it out. Above all this has taught us that you can surmount anything that comes along.
Not surprisingly, being devotees of the performance car, Messrs. Walton and Stocks hope in the near future to offer a specialist parts service – probably in the form of “bolt on” kits and accessories for giving production cars that extra “something”. They are hoping in fact that their company will become agents for these parts.