The Drum Gathering of Jaguars and Daimlers and JEC Ceilidh

For the third year running, courtesy of the National Trust for Scotland, the Grampian Region held its Drum Castle classic car event on Sunday the 28th July 2002. One of our goals was to attract as many cars as possible on the day so that we could fill the castle grounds and make the event as interesting as possible. Letters were sent out to other local car clubs, which resulted in attracting over 100 cars on the day with 1100 visitors.

Thanks need to go out to the Ford RS owners and Capri owners Clubs and their members for attending. I've never seen such an enthusiastic bunch. A group of them arrived very early in the morning in order to grab the best locations in the grounds at the rear of the castle. They no sooner parked their prize possessions and they then set about cleaning and polishing their cars until they gleamed in the morning sunshine. Please take heed all you Jag enthusiasts!

This year the club committee decided to hold a Ceilidh at the Tor Na Coille Hotel in Banchory on the Saturday evening before the big day. The Tor Na Coille Hotel stands serenely on a wooded rise on the outskirts of Banchory with its Grey Granite walls lavishly overhung with ivy. This hotel built in 1873 is an attractive hotel offering peace; tranquillity and magnificent views over the tree capped Deeside countryside and was an ideal setting for our first JEC Ceilidh.

The intention was to welcome our many travelled visitors and expose them to traditional Scottish hospitality with dancing to the Bennachie Ceilidh band, with lots of alcohol and to sober up with, a plate of stovies and oatcake supper. Everyone had a great time, some more that others I might add. Once everyone had mastered the dancing steps to those "jigs" and "reels" the party went with a swing. The JEC Committee managed to sell over 60 tickets but the majority of people who attended I might add were guests, friends and relatives of the committee. We would dearly like to see more of our club members attending next year. I would also like to thanks Jim & Isobel Stalker for organising this great event.

An important point to mention is that we managed to raise £160 from our raffle prizes and have donated these funds towards the "ARCHIE foundation" [Funds to build the new Aberdeen Children's Hospital]. We intend to continue our support for such good causes next year.

Thanks must go out to Graham & Alison Mundy [JEC Direct] together with Keith & Linda Vincent [JEC DVLA Rep] who travelled all the way up to Aberdeenshire. We also had visitors from Louisiana in the USA so we would like to mention Robert & April Hall who sampled the delights of Scottish hospitality and hope they will make it back sometime in the future.

A further mention needs to go out to our sponsors for the day and we would like to thank Reg Vardy for the display of new Jaguars, Larry Kinch for bringing along his XJ220, Charlie Palmer, Classic Restorations for the two restored cars he brought up all the way from Alyth and for putting up his car restoration display, Keith Hines from EDS for getting the PA system to work, Dave Street from the RGIT for supplying the fire extinguishers, Jim Whitehorn from Salamis for supplying the matting, Lachlan Gray for managing the concours session and last but not least Roy Alexander for opening up the Trophy Centre shop in Aberdeen so that we could acquire our prizes on the Sunday morning.

This year's informal concours event saw some great examples of classic Jaguars and Daimler cars. We managed to recruit Keith Vincent at the end of the day to present the various trophies for the best examples shown for each decade starting from the 1940's to the present day with a trophy for the best car in show.

The winners for this year's event were as follows:

Best 1940's Gerrie Sangster, Aberdeen with his 1949 Jaguar Mark V
Best 1950's Ian Smith, Aberdeen with his 1952 Daimler
Best 1960's Jim Gordon, Aboyne with his 1960 Jaguar XK150
Best 1970's Tom Taylor, Aberdeen with his 1973 Jaguar Series 3 E Type
Best 1980's Ian Forbes, Stonehaven with his 1983 Jaguar XJ-S V12
Best 1990's Iain Gunn, Elgin with his 1990 Jaguar XJ-S V12 Convertible

There was also a prize for the car that traveled the furthest. This prize was presented to J. MacIntosh, Nairnshire with his 1949 Daimler.

Last years winner of the best car in show, Jim Blackhall [honorary JEC Grampian Region member] managed to travel back from Houston with his wife Lynda to attend the Drum event. Although still jet lagged, Jim presented this years winner of "Best Car in Show" to Tom Taylor with his beautifully restored red Jaguar E Type Series 3 Roadster.

Well the day at Drum did not all go exactly to plan and there was a nervous period until we managed to locate all the trophies that had been accidentally left in the shop for cleaning. Contingency plans were however put in place. Two comic artists were on one of the stalls at Drum and we managed to get them to draw a series of cups for the presentation [Your trophy is in the post strategy!]. Thankfully, Derek Cruden one of our committee members managed to locate the shop owner and recover the said items just in the nick of time for the presentation ceremony.

It was unfortunate that the weather broke during the last half hour on what was a glorious day. However, plenty of shelter was available so that we could complete the rest of the raffle prizes. Our thanks must go out to Isobel Stalker, Frances Taylor and Kim Clarke for the good work at manning the cake and candy stall and also helping out with the prize giving ceremony. Thanks also needs to go to rest of the Drum Committee Jim Wiseman, Derek Cruden, John Clarke, George Allen and Ben Cummins for all the help with the organization of the day's event - well done guys!

There is nothing like a good soaking and getting covered in mud at the end of the day [My JEC polo shirt ended up two sizes larger] but was glad that everyone had a great time and look forward to next years event.

Tom Taylor