Sunday 25 August 2013

Looking for David (dave) Hassell

I did eventually find Dave, alive and well living in the Chester UK area, he was on Facebook.

Dave was a great friend of mine, some years after I emigrated to South Africa he followed me.
At that time Dave lived with his parents and brother at Speke, Liverpool and not that far from the Ford car plant where they used to make the Ford Anglia.

We both went to the Liverpool College of  Building and managed to pass the exam for Carpentry and Joinery with a distinction in the last year, that will have been around 1967?

Dave liked motor bikes as much as cars,he had a Yamaha 250 before the Triumph 500, then moved on to the Triumph 650 Bonniville, what a performer!


Click on the picture for a larger view.

Photo taken in Maghull, Merseyside by Robert Henry McBride.

The letter B on the registration plate tells me this was a 1964 bike, Dave bought his bikes new, he will have been about 18 back then. The whisky bottle was a bit of an odd one, Dave never drank the stuff as I can remember?

Dave later bought an MG 1100, based on the Morris or Austin version but with twin carburetors and better trim.  Dave later bought a brand new metalic gold Sunbeam Stiletto 875cc, the company named Kirbys in Maghull sold him the car, that was around the same period I bought one myself in metalic blue. All this was at the time we both worked as apprentice Joiners for Tysons Contractors of 5 Dryden street, Liverpool.

Dave was not as used to cars with rear wheel drive as myself and one dark damp evening managed to leave a high and banked road on the way back from the Pheasant Inn, near Crosby, the car then rolled and Dave was then famous for rolling the very first Sunbeam Stiletto! this was early in 1968.

Dave was a member of the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland, as CCY (camping club youth) members we traveled far and wide, did Dave re join the club I wonder? The last I heard was he was working a maintainance manager for a company near Liverpool.

Where is Dave now, while in Cape Town he married Sue and English girl with red hair, at that time Dave worked in Cape Town for Murray and Stewart building contractors and as a manager. Sue and Dave lived in a flat above Proctors Garage in Bantry Bay, they had one child at that time.

Later they moved to Liverpool where Sue and Dave produced another child, we lost touch with them after that. I have checked Facebook and found neither of them.

David will be about sixty six now?

Roy