My father, Dennis Quincey, served his apprenticeship in the late 1940s with Ruston & Hornsby in Lincoln before his National Service in the Navy. I was born at Billingborough near Sleaford, Lincolnshire during his time at sea. After National Service he worked in the local garage as a mechanic.
My earliest memories are of following him everywhere and being in the workshop at weekends and taking me to a local steam driven pumping station before I had even started school. Basically engines and engineering were somewhere in my genes l would say. At the time Mum was a full time housewife looking after Dad, myself and my younger brother.
My first recollection of attending a steam rally was at Rempstone, Nottinghamshire in 1961 or 62 when l was 8 or 9. After that we moved to the Lincolnshire coast and regularly attended Revesby/Carrington rallies. We began to take a real interest in stationary engines at the Sudbury Mammoth Old Time Fair, like others I feel.
Dad had by now started his own garage business in late 1970 and in 1972 he found our first engine, a Lister L, in a local scrapyard. We jointly restored it and first rallied it at Carrington in 1975. More
