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How landing the Whitchurch Midget took one big coincidence
It was sold before he was even born, but when David Ryder Richardson discovered that his mother's old car was still in existence, he simply had to get his hands on it.
The 1934 MG PA Midget, which will feature in a classic car rally in Risborough later this month, passed through a handful of owners over more than 60 years before an extraordinary co-incidence reunited it with the Ryder Richardson family.
Mr Ryder Richardson, a retired gemstone dealer and motor enthusiast from Whitchurch, said: "In 1997 my cousin, Mike, called me to say that he had just been phoned by a girl with whom he had worked some 10 years before in Hong Kong.
"She told him that she had recently married a man from Suffolk who had a couple of old cars in his barn. One of these was a little MG, and she found a document showing the original owner as Captain Frank Ryder Richardson. She wondered if this man was any relation of Mike's."
Captain Frank was indeed a relation – David's mother, Joan Le Bas, was his wife.
After he died in 1937, Joan married Frank's older brother Dr Jack, who is David's father (and who served as Whitchurch GP for many years).
When the car was put up for sale in 2001, David was contacted and he bought it straight away. "I had to have it," he said.
Research has revealed Captain Frank bought the MG in 1934 and took it with him to Egypt where he had been posted. It is thought he died after contracting meningitis in a Cairo swimming pool.
Joan sold it soon afterwards, and it passed to a number of owners including Cambridge students who supercharged it and used it in competitions.
"Naturally enough, they managed to blow the engine to bits," said Mr Ryder Richrdson.
- The Midget is one of 300 cars and bikes at the Kop Hill Climb vintage rally in Princes Risborough on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th of September.
- It will also be on show at a special exhibition at Friars Square Shopping Centre this weekend (September 11-12).
- Tickets for Kop Hill, costing 5 (under 12s free), are available at Aylesbury, Wendover and Princes Risborough Tourist Information Centres and from Friars Square at the weekend.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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