Mill Hill and Motors from the 60's and 70's - Some pictures and reminiscences from my Dad's collection

Dad, who took these pics RIP

My family have a 70 year association with the motor trade in Mill Hill. Around 1950, my Dad set up a crash repair business in Mill Hill. At one stage, he had enough staff for the firm to run its own football team. The business also had a long standing association with Edgware Town football club, being a club sponsor and match day advertiser.


My Dad being an Aussie, he had no interest in Football, but this was our local club, so he always did his best to support it. Many of the guys who worked for him also played for the club or were fans.

I while back, I tweeted an old program celebrating this link between the firm and the club.

For many years, my family's motor business sponsored Edgware Town FC. We'd take great pride in seeing the MacMetals adverts on the front cover of the programme and several of the squad worked for my Dad. Such a shame to see the old ground gone @EtfcFans pic.twitter.com/1JPALVnsAV

— Roger Tichborne/RogT #CTID 🏴‍☠️🇬🇧 (@Barneteye) July 24, 2019

As regular readers will no doubt have noticed, I've been going through our family photo album. I found an abundance of photos of cars and car related photo's, not really surprising as my Dad was a class A petrolhead. The Holy grail for me will be when I find some pictures of his much loved 3 Litre Capri, black with a  go faster red stripe. He'd bought it from a guy who modded it for the Pan African Rally in 1973. It had a nitrus burner on board and my Dad would take great delight racing Police cars, and when the inevitable visit occurred a few days later, he'd claim that it was one of his staff, which one he couldn't quite remember, who had borrowed it as he'd been away for the weekend. My Father had a very fast and loose view of road traffic law. Although in every other way he was a law abiding citizen, he felt roads were his own personal fiefdom and treated them as such. He tended to view the Police as 'the other team' and would waste no opportunity to try and put one over on them. Oddly many of his best friends were policemen and he actually went to Rome on the Catholic Police Association Pilgrimage in 1966.

I posted a selection of these picture from the 60's and 70's on Instagram, I thought it would be good to gather them into a collection. I hope you enjoy these.

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy.

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 22, 2020 at 4:56am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy. This is Finchley Central

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 22, 2020 at 4:57am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy. Stop off on the way to The seaside

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 22, 2020 at 5:00am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’70s. Enjoy. My Brother Laurie in the early days of Bunns Lane Welding

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 22, 2020 at 5:05am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy. Where all the action happen

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 22, 2020 at 5:07am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy. A ‘nice little earner’

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 22, 2020 at 5:08am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy. The MacMetals boys in 1976

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 23, 2020 at 2:01am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy. Lorna Bowra and Ken Hill at MacMetals 1976

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 23, 2020 at 2:02am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy. Dads driving license and MacMetals headed notepaper. I must say the old style licenses were proper.

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 23, 2020 at 4:19am PDT

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Motors and Mill Hill Vol 1. My Dad ran a crash repair business at Bunns Lane Works, #MillHill. Here are a collection of some of his car related pics from the 1960’s. Enjoy. The end of the road. This was the only new car Dad ever bought. Top of the range Ghia model, state of the art cassette player, bought 1979

A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex) on Apr 23, 2020 at 4:23am PDT

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