John Spinks 1956-2002

The day we sailed into Birmingham

One of the more fun things we did at MOTAQUIP was to enter the Lord Mayors procession in 1983 if memory serves me well. Organised by Dave Lavender, John and I had the task of coordinating and staffing our offering.

The theme was “The Sea” which for landlocked Birmingham was a bit strange. Still each of us dressed up as boats from which we gave out freebies and collected donations for the fund.

Our centrepiece was a blimp tied to the top of a Matra Rancho and done up as a whale it was pulled all around the city centre by yours truly with a large fishing rod.

As you can see from the pics was a certain JS with Karen in attendance.

A great day for an exhibitionist and John was in his element if fact we put on such a good show that we won the first prize for the best float! Which meant being presented to the Lord Mayor at the town hall for the presentation.

Needless to say having toasted our good fortune we started on the way back, the driver went too fast and we lost the whale that went bouncing down Digbeth high street chased by a band of pirates to a cacophony of horns as cars braked and swerved to avoid our version of the Dambuster’s bomb!

Not a day to forget in a hurry but I can shut my eyes and remember the cheers as we walked down New street to a crowd of people doing their impression of the opening scenes to “Titanic”.

Another good day at the office with JS.

Click on any image for an enlarged version
The “whale” before we got our hands on it	Yours truly with the “getup” JS and Karen were kitted out the same but no photo exists
Team Motaquip getting its just rewards Notice JS lying down on the job – as usual	You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!