The sixth running of the Thatcham Classic, a small car show that I am responsible for organising and running each year, took place in October.
As is always the case, I was blown away by the support the little local show received and in the end we had almost 250 classics on the field, including a decent showing of the C&SC Our Classics cars.
However, what made an impression on me even more than the cars was the people.
Each year we keep the show completely free and just try to coerce people into putting a few quid into the charity bucket. This year we were collecting for Macmillan Cancer Support – a very worthy charity and one which I’m sure many of the visitors to the show and to this website will have knowledge of, or a link to in some form.
Now I'm always a little nervous of asking people for money – I'm not a natural extrovert (honestly) and so it's always nice when someone kicks things off and puts the first change in the bucket.
This year though, it wasn't change: a gentleman came up to me and put a £20 note into the bucket and then asked me to come and look at his car.
As we stood next to the AC Cobra replica, he explained that he couldn’t drive it at the moment and that his friend had brought him along in it.
He then proceeded to remove his cap and show me the scar at the back of his head where he had recently had a tumour removed. "I’m having chemotherapy and radiotherapy," he said stoically. "I might live… I might not. Whatever happens will happen."
