Laurie Vinall -- some memories

I first came to know Laurie when I was 15 in 1936, and was apprenticed to Clarrie Sweet, my uncle, at his garage (a 20's auto service centre) on Morphettville Road, Warradale. I was one of two apprentices – the other being a much older local lad, Gordon Bourne. Clarrie was at the centre of automobile activities of all kinds, and Laurie was restoring several old cars, including a Vauxhall 30/98, and an International motorised buggy. So I became part of this in the after hours spare time work on these vehicles, sometimes at Clarrie's garage, and often at Laurie's family home on Sturt Road, where a dairy business was carried out, and Laurie had built up a small workshop – which stands to this day in it's original form!

Laurie was probably about 18 when I met him, and was delivering the family milk in a strange 3 wheeled British Raleigh delivery van, which was prone to falling on it's side when turning corners. He used to come to the garage with odd mechanical faults and/or service. He drove this vehicle with typical youthful abandon, with all the (un)expected consequences! I can remember working on it, especially as the whole vehicle was tainted with the smell of sour milk -- the result of numerous spillages inside the van. Some in the process of moving large milk cans about, but more often the result of the van tipping over and the top coming off a full can of milk with the contents flooding the van before it could be unloaded and righted back on to it's 3 wheels, then reloaded and the deliveries completed!

The Sweet garage was closed down in 1937, and my apprenticeship unfortunately ended, as work in the industry was almost impossible to find – certainly as an apprentice. Uncle Clarry moved into the quarrying industry, and a much better weekly income. (I was to follow him in 1947 for the same reason). Clarry did get me a position with the SA RAA movement, but while I passed the entry examination with flying colours, my physical size went against me. Part of the job was to be trained as a part time road service mechanic, riding the large BSA motorcycles with box sidecar, this I was rightfully claimed to be incapable of, and so I moved on to other employment and soon it was 1939 and WW2. During this time I lost touch with Laurie apart from seeing him on odd occasions at Clarry's home, during home leave.

However, prior to WW2 there was plenty of contact with the ongoing restoration of the 30/98 and the buggy, and I was given small jobs to help out. One of my memories is the welding together of a racing exhaust manifold for the Vauxhall to (hopefully) give more power at hill climbs, which Laurie competed in. The lightening of the engine flywheel was also carried out, but the most ambitious project was the fitting of huge Mercedes front brake drums to overcome the lack of braking ability, which was a constant worry in the growing traffic of those years. A lot of work was carried out on the International motor buggy also -- Laurie's brother Ross, also had one of these strange machines.

After WW2 I once again became involved with the ongoing activities of the 30/98 which by now was competing in speed events, one that I particularly remember was a road race meeting on the pre WW2 Lobethal circuit in about 1947. In 1948, I decided to build my own 3 wheeled car in the back room of my new home in Morphettville road, and I proceeded to lay out a chassis and drill holes with a 'gutbuster' hand drill, and bolted the parts together. Eventually all was completed, and my friendship with Laurie resulted in him bringing his Ford utility to my home and helping me carry the completed chassis out of the house with some difficulty, and then loading it into the ute, and transporting it to his home workshop on Sturt Road where he now had arc welding facilities (rare in a private home then). I then transferred my activities to his workshop where I toiled in the evenings, welding up the chassis assembly, until it was ready to be equipped with the engine and mechanical parts from the Norton motorcycle that I used as every day transport. A week or so later, just before Christmas 1947, I was able to drive it out of Laurie's workshop in bare chassis form, and register it, the resulting bodywork being built in the evenings at my newly completed home workshop about a mile from Laurie's home.

I still kept in touch with Laurie and the goings on at his workshop -- a Swift automobile was being refurbished, and a very early Benz (1898 ?) had been found, old friends were always about Laurie's home, including my cousin 'Sunny' Sundqvist, pottering about on small mechanical refurbishments on all the cars. Laurie had by now equipped the workshop with a lathe, and this was in continual use for various jobs. He was also building a machine to spin metal, and help in the refurbishment of his collection of old automobile lamps.

Time went by and my marriage had failed, and I had moved to Kangaroo Island in January 1952 and a new life and soon a young family, and at some point I made one more contribution to Laurie's growing car collection when I noticed that an ancient Rolls Royce was in use on Kangaroo Island as a converted general use farm truck. This proved to be a real treasure and Laurie organised a deal in which he found a serviceable fishing boat in Adelaide, and swapped it for the Rolls. By now a lot of years had passed, and I had moved to Melbourne with my growing family, and I only saw Laurie at odd times, and the last time that I remember him was after he had recovered from a severe heart attack, but was defying doctor's orders by energetically wheeling a load of full milk crates around the milk distribution bay that was part of a much upgraded distribution service that had evolved from the original family dairy. Sadly, a short time later, I heard that Laurie had finally lost his battle with his failing heart, and was gone!