Cecil's Transport Business Was Fit For A King (19 August 1977)

Come September I shall have held a driving licence for 40 years.  So, although there have been many years when I have used it very little, I was beginning to think of myself as something of a veteran – until the other day.

Then I chatted with an old acquaintance who had held a licence from 1915 to 1974 – a total of 59 years – and one who, moreover, had driven royalty in his time.

I refer to Mr Cecil Hands, who is now aged 81 and lives in Clifford Avenue, Bletchley, along with his son.

He was born at The George Inn, on Buckingham Road, where his father, Mr John Hands – usually know as Jack – was the licensee.  He has a brother, Harry, living at Shenley, who is 83 and who was born either at South Terrace or St Martin’s Street.  From this I assume that Jack took over The George in about 1895, though Cecil confesses himself hazy about dates.

But father Jack did not only take over a pub.  Those were the days of horse-drawn equipages.  Jack had stables at The George and his flys and broughams were much in demand for taking people from the railway station to outlying villages and so forth.

Either then or later he also took over some stables in the old station approach road for the same general purpose.

While the boys were reaching manhood motor cars were quickly superseding horse-drawn vehicles and eventually the station road stables were converted to a garage with the boys’ interests in view.

But their business careers were sharply interrupted by the outbreak of the 1914-1918 war.  Harry was in the Bucks Yeomanry and was soon in France.  Then, in 1915 – the year he obtained his first licence – Cecil himself joined the Royal Flying Corps.

After the war the firm of Hands Brothers carried on their motor business for many years.  In their early years they had some contracts which would seem curious today.  For instance, the Post Office did not yet have a motorised mail van and a van belonging to Hands Brothers was used instead.

“The van set off at 4.20 in the morning and went to Stony Stratford, then to Wolverton, Newport Pagnell, Wavendon and Woburn Sands and finished at Woburn at 6.30,” Cecil tells me.

“We also did the railway’s parcel deliveries.   And just after nine o’clock of a morning we used to meet the Northampton train and from it take bread to Weatherhead’s grocery shop, which stood just about where their big television shop is now.”

His day of glory, however, came in the autumn of 1923.

“One morning we were working in the garage when the ‘phone rang.  My brother answered it.  The call came from an AA scout at the Hockliffe crossroads and the message was to send a car at once to Battlesden Lodge to pick up two ‘royals’ and bring them to Bletchley station.

“We had a Napier car and I got into it away I went.  Battlesden Lodge is on the left-hand side of the main road a bit further on than Hockliffe.  There the Duke and Duchess of York were waiting for me along with an equerry.

“The Duke and Duchess got in the back and the equerry rode beside me in the front passenger seat and so I brought them to the station.

“They were travelling to Chapel Brampton to inspect a hunting box for the coming season with the Pytchley.  That is a few miles on the other side of Northampton.  Their car had broken down at Battlesden and apparently they hoped to get a good part of the way to Chapel Brampton by train instead.

“At Bletchley, however, there was no train available for an hour.  I believe there was a discussion about how best to help them and while this was going on they went into the station hotel and were served with tea and sandwiches by Miss Florrie Burdett (later Mrs Osborne, of Tattenhoe Lane).

“It was then suggested that I might drive them to Chapel Brampton as well, which I did.”

The then Duke of York became King George VI and the Duchess is now the Queen Mother.  They had married only that summer.  There was no conversation whatever in the car during the journey, but Cecil’s happy memory is that when the royal couple got out of his car at Chapel Brampton he had one of the Duchess’s now-famous “thank you” smiles all to himself.

Hands Brothers continued their garage until their father died – around 1937 – thinks Cecil.  Cecil then moved from his erstwhile home in Cambridge Street to take over The George and he brought the family tenure there to 60 years before his wife’s ill-health forced him to quit.