Meanwhile a friend, Peter Savonjie introduced me to Jeff Plowman.

My first hull NZR 6. Note the master cylinder mounts and bell crank pivots on the rear floor.
See also the unusual gear lever gate and the nice new shed floor. There are years between the pictures.

The frame / chassis / serial number. NZR 6. This carrier completed January / February 1941
Below: the custodian, as seen by a clever (but not so kind) workmate.
Another project looms.

Jeff will be known to a few of you as an author of books relating to New Zealand’s armoured fighting
vehicles. Jeff asked a few questions and we settled on sending him some photos. He identified the hull as
that of a New Zealand “LP1” (We now know it’s not! It’s an N.Z. Bren!) The hull number was there, NZR6.
That’s rare! Who else had one? No one! A few years went by and my efforts to round up bits for it were
not too successful. It was pretty hard because everyone who had carrier parts was hanging on to them. I
swapped a trailer load of LP2 bits for Riveted carrier bits in Christchurch, scored some good track, and
bought some bogie wheels. Time went by. We extended our house, I pulled the floor from the hull and
had another one folded up. Life was busy, three growing kids, a sizeable mortgage, and other interests.
The carrier floor leaned against the wall in the garage for quite a while. I bought kept and sold a ¾ ton
Dodge ambulance, then did the same with a Unimog. During this time I found another bare hull. It turned
out to be a British Armoured O.P No1 MkIIIW. Another oddball! This is riveted carrier shape (a U.C) but a
welded hull. l Dragged it to work and with my boss’s permission, I was allowed to have it at work, to
work on it, in my own time. Looking back, I can’t believe it! Thankyou Stewart Kerr.

Graeme’s at it again (my apologies for the verb)

The implication was that Chappy (my shift mate and I were playing war games instead of working).

I did a lot of work on it, new upper armour, both side, rear upper, div plate etc. (the front was still there
and good), replaced parts of the track guards, tool board, rear deck, lots of bits, sand blast and paint and
took it home. Shortly after a switch clicked in our heads and we sold our home.

Another hold up / diversion.

Chris and I bought a small piece of land in the country. We loaded our house stuff on a trailer and shifted
to a rental. We bought seven shipping containers and shifted the shite from my shed out onto our bit of
dirt. We built a building (small house, large shed) (house still not finished) and seven years later, we
opened the seven containers to see what was in there. It was like Christmas (for me)