The SS Cars chairman and managing director stood up to address his board of directors. ‘Gentleman, thank you for attending our AGM. As usual, I will keep things brief and to the point: 1938/39 was simply our best ever year. The difficulties we all faced in 1937 over the all-steel bodies were, in hindsight, just steps that we had to take. We built 5,320 SS Jaguars last year, more than double the number we made the previous year, and over 30% more than we did in 1936/37, our best ever coachbuilding year. A splendid achievement, I’m sure you will all agree.’
‘We have our very own air-raid trenches between the production buildings now, so if you hear sirens, we may have to resume our meeting in one of them. And if you hadn’t noticed, the sheds are now painted in camouflage colours, so you may have to ask for directions.’ When the grins and sniggers from around the table subsided, he continued. ‘War is very much upon us, and our order book is virtually non-existent, although I hear Henlys are close to placing one. Quite where Bertie gets his customers from in times of war, is beyond me,’ he shook his head. ‘But then, he used to always surprise me with his order quantity during peacetime, hopefully we will return to those conditions soon.’
He glanced around the table with a resigned expression, ‘Our new owners; The War Ministry, should, and I say should, because nobody knows for sure, provide us with sufficient work to keep the firm
