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![](\"https:\/\/abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag23\/2023090601.jpg\")
\nA few weeks ago, I had a knock on my door from a neighbour whose uncle was visiting from Australia. He asked if I would let him look at my MGs.<\/p>\n
Thanks to Pete for this piece:
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\nA few weeks ago, I had a knock on my door from a neighbour whose uncle was visiting from Australia. He asked if I would let him look at my MGs.<\/p>\n
His name is John Prime, and he had a fascinating story to tell.<\/p>\n
I left Abingdon for Australia as a “Ten Pound Pom” with my family in 1975 aged 34 years.<\/p>\n I started at the MG factory when I was 16 years old as a storeman\/tea boy.<\/p>\n When I was 18, I went onto the production line for the Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite & subsequently, due to the lack of orders moved onto the Morris Van. Due to a downturn in the market, I left & went to work at AERE Harwell for 3 years.<\/p>\n In 1964 I had a recall from the MG factory & went back to work on the Austin Healey Sprite & from there to the MGC production line & when that finished I went onto the MGB assembly.<\/p>\n My memories of working at the MG’s was one of being very family orientated with my brother, brother in law & uncles all worked there too.<\/p>\n I thoroughly enjoyed my time there & as an original “\u00a310 Pom” anything to do with MG’s & Abingdon will always hold a special place in my heart.<\/em><\/p>\n As a complete surprise for John I took him out for a spin in my MG RV8 convertible (built at Cowley in the 1990’s) & I arranged to take him down to the MG Car Club in Cemetery Road to meet Colin Grant & archivist Pete Neal who showed him around Kimber House. My thanks to Colin & Pete.<\/p>\n The photo of John is with my modified MGB GT (known as an RV8 GT) I think the transformation surprised him when he recalled his days of working on the MGB, he could not believe it when he saw the car battery located under the bonnet.<\/p>\n The photo shows John Prime with Pete’s modified MGB GT (known as an RV8 GT).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thanks to Pete for this piece: A few weeks ago, I had a knock on my door from a neighbour whose uncle was visiting from Australia. He asked if I would let him look at my MGs. His name is John Prime, and he had a fascinating story to tell. I left Abingdon for Australia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}