Our Fifteen Minutes of Fame: Mr White’s E-Type Jaguars

In the swinging sixties, when the Beetles were at the height of their fame, and the England football team were not far from winning the World Cup, we lived in a small cul-de-sac of badly built, modern houses in the West Midlands where nothing ever happened.

The Beetles at the height of their fame, when nothing very much was happening in the West Midlands. — In the West Midlands the sixties weren’t really swinging!

I mean, things did happen – we got up and went to school, we had birthdays and Christmases, and went to the toilet, but nothing of note ever happened, or if it did, it was kept from us, because we were kids.

The excitement that was sweeping the south– short skirts, Carnaby Street, London swinging like a pendulum did, passed us by. It was happening on television – to other people. It definitely wasn’t happening to us.

Red E-Type Jaguar — Photo by Brooksbro69

And then one day, Mr White who lived right at the top of the road, bought not just one, but two E-Type Jaguars! He parked them on the street where we could all see them. They were amazing and glamorous. We knew that we were truly blessed, because we – the previously non-descript ones – lived in the road with multiple Jags.

Obviously, we immediately told all our friends, and lo, they were not just impressed: they were actually jealous. Of us!

Of course, this was in the olden days when children had not long stopped being shoved up chimneys and were free to roam the streets at will. Hordes of kids began appearing in the road on their bikes. They gathered round the Jaguars, their mouths dangling open in amazement. We, the kids of Park Avenue, were the only ones who actually knew the people who owned the Jags, which meant that we were touched by their glamour.

What we failed to mention to our newly acquired adoring fans was that we didn’t know the Whites very well…. hardly at all really. In fact, if Mr White had tripped over one of us in the street, he would have struggled to put a name to the face. Instead, we spoke with authority about them and their cars. Our social status went through the roof.

And then, one terrible day, Mr White moved away taking his fabulous E-Type Jaguars –and very probably the rest of his family – with him.

Winston Churchill pondering on how he could have slightly rewritten one of his best known speeches. — Never was so much owed by so many to Mr White.

The adoring hoards left and we returned to being normal human beings again. We’d had our fifteen minutes of fame; we’d been touched by stardust, and then we were thrown right back into the gutter. To almost quote Winston Churchill, who would have said it like this if he’d thought about it a bit more carefully, “Never was so much owed by so many to Mr White”.

Would you like to learn more about the Whites?

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Fifty and Freaking Fabulous

Our Fifteen Minutes of Fame: Mr White’s E-Type Jaguars

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Our Fifteen Minutes of Fame: Mr White’s E-Type Jaguars

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