My life in Cortina World began in 1981 after my brother bought a 1600E. I went along to a branch meeting and ended up buying a nice E in Aquatic Jade. It was then, that I joined the South West Midlands Branch of the National 1600E Owners Club, participating in its many activities before becoming the Branch Organizer for 15 years. In the mid eighties I founded ‘Cortina Day’ at Symonds Yat and with the dedication of my fellow branch members, their wives and girlfriends, went on to develop the biggest and most successful, 'Cortina only' show that it is today!   

After crashing my first 1600E, I acquired another car this time in Aubergine. Then having a really awful re-spray carried out by a company in Bristol, I under went a three year battle to sue them, and with the pay out I went on to buy my Savage CAN 187H 8th June 1990 from Bow in London.

Two highlights in this period was taking part in the Cortinas' trip to Cortina D’Ampezzo, the ski resort in Italy from where the name came from and in 1992 joining forty other Cortinas' of all variants to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary since the production of the MK1. The other was Jeff Uren’s 25 year anniversary of his company, 'Race Proved Performance and Racing Equipment Limited' and of course the birth of the Savage. I was delighted to win Car of the show, this trophy being donated by the Ford Motor Company. I’ve also been a National judge, judging the club’s top cars and enjoyed inspecting them at close quarters under the direction of Dave Marson, who was head judge at the time and a very good friend that inspired me with his superb Concours restorations that he carried out to his cars over the years.