IF ONLY CARS COULD TALK, and tell us what they have seen. That’s what my friend (and fellow Singer owner) Simon Worland said when he discovered surprising things about his 1935-built, 1936-model Singer Nine Le Mans Special Speed.
He already knew that its first owner was Ronnie Marsh, Midlands racing driver and heir to the family meat-packing business, and that Marsh had it race-prepared for Le Mans in 1936. That race never happened, France being in a state of civil unrest at the time, and Ronnie replaced the Singer with something speedier.
What happened to CRE 945 after that had always remained fuzzy so, 38 years after he bought it as a major restoration project, Simon decided to have a good look at the documents that came with it. A project with Year Six at his local primary school in Stoke Poges, attended by Simon’s daughter Anabel, was the catalyst.
The children were studying World War Two, something that happened almost inconceivably long ago for them. So Simon brought his Singer along to make the era a touch more tangible, and they started researching past owners’ names. The first recorded, in what was possibly a replacement logbook, was based at RAF Wickenby in Lincolnshire. He would soon be based at RAF Scampton nearby. His name was Richard Trevor-Roper.
IT WAS LATE evening on 16 May 1943. Nineteen Avro Lancaster bombers of 617 Squadron were readying to take off from Scampton in three
