In the early summer of 1997, days of unsettled weather suddenly changed into a glorious heat wave, just in time for our annual migration to our holiday home in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Then disaster struck, and the whole holiday was threatened to be spoilt by our little MGB’s water pump, which started to ooze dark red sludge from behind the radiator pulley. It came as no surprise really, it had to pack up sooner or later, after all the pump was the same age as the car, 32 years old. “If only I had brought my spare pump with me” I muttered to myself. I could see it there in my mind’s eye, lying dormant in its box 200 miles away in Belgium. “What’s the use of having spares if you don’t have them with you?” I could hear this little voice nagging in my head. The voice sounded like my dear wife’s.

There we were stuck at our summer home in the village of Goebelsmuhle, which has had officially 20 inhabitants for the last 30 years, but in reality only 9 if they are all at home and Dr Beaching please note, a railway station that has trains stopping in both directions every hour, plus a platform that is longer than the village. Outside the station master’s office there is a lovely display of geraniums in what looks like a flower pot hanging on chains, but if you lift the hanging blooms you’ll find underneath a World War II German soldier’s helmet serving as a pot. Just to give you an idea of how isolated this village is, the nearest shop is some 15 miles away. I could go on all day about how remote and primitive this place is, which is the reason I have loved it for the past 25 years, but all this is relevant to predicament we were in with our MGB.

There I was buried under my B’s bonnet which quickly attracted the locals in droves, a third of the population. “You’ve ‘ad it now” in his native tongue “Letzebuergesch”, which even after 25 years is worse than Chinese to me, but that’s another story. “Ich vermute das Sie richtig sind in ihrer annahme” I said slowly in my best German. It was then that I suddenly remembered that one of these locals had acquired on of those ‘new fangled things’ as he called it, a fax machine. So I reached for my Bible or MGB Spares catalogue, made out a list of parts that I thought I would need and faxed it to the MGOC, asking if they had a water pump, gasket, and bolts in stock and if so, would they send them on to me in Luxembourg? Virtually straight away I received a reply saying that all parts were available and that they were on their

way. This was some time late on Wednesday afternoon and on Friday morning at 8:30 a Luxembourg post office van drew up and delivered my parcel from the MGOC with exactly all the parts that I needed. The locals were astonished, they had never seen the postman in their village at that hour of the day and on top of all that with a box of brand new parts for a car that is 32 years old. One of them told me he once had to wait two weeks for a water pump for his Opel Jeep which was only two years old. They couldn’t believe their eyes. But this was not the only occasion that the MG network came to my rescue.

It was 1998 and once again we were on our annual migration to Luxembourg, this time in a torrential downpour which lasted for more than 100 miles. The Brussels ring road was flooded in some places with nearly a foot of water and we were often at a complete standstill, quite unable to see anything ahead of us. Eventually, as we were leaving Brussels further and further behind us, the heavy rain cleared up and we got the old B back up to motorway speed.

It was still pretty dismal weather and the cars had their headlights on, which was all I could see in my rear view mirror. Then it was that I realised something was wrong, because the reflections of those lights in my mirror were very blurred and sort of going round in circles. By now the gear lever was also beginning to vibrate like hell and I started to fear that something was going drastically wrong inside the engine or gear box. Keeping our fingers crossed we trundled on to Luxembourg hoping for the best.

After we had arrived at our destination and unloaded our car, I jacked it up for an inspection of the visible moving parts. My luck was in, without too much searching I found that the universal joints in the prop shaft had a lot of play, hence the vibrations.

Once again laying under the car attracted the local gentry and the chap with the fax machine kindly offered the use of it again.

Thumbing through the ‘MGOC Directory of Recommended Suppliers’, which I always keep in my glove compartment, I found to my surprise an address in Luxembourg together with a telephone number. It was by now 7pm on a Friday evening but I thought that I would give the number a try with a view to arranging a visit the next day. A woman with a friendly voice answered my call, and what’s more she could speak quite good English. I explained to her the problem

that I had and after checking with her husband Mr Jean Godart, she informed me that they had an prop shaft complete with new universal joints in stock. Mrs Godart also informed me that I would be welcome to call round any time up until 11 pm, because their MG shop and garage was also a pub. After checking the map I realised that “Jhang’s MG Shop as it is called, was less than 20 miles away from Goebelsmuhle. So I set off for the village of Boevange situated between the towns of Wiltz and Clervaux, more out of curiosity than anything else. Just to keep the records up to date and to show that civilisation is slowly creeping up on Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, “Jhang’s MG” has now had an extra digit added to its telephone number, since September they are into six digits. The new number is : – 994026.

If it hadn’t been for the Thahiti blue MGB GT parked outside Jean Godart’s pub, I would never have found the place. I opened the pub door and in the hallway I had to fight through a sea of MG stainless steel exhausts. Once inside the pub there was nowhere to sit down, every table and chair was occupied with MG bits, even the dance floor was crowded with Bs and TDs.

To the amazement of the locals I arrived back in Goebelsmuhle at 9 pm with a ‘good as new’ prop shaft fitted snugly under our little ‘B’, once again proving the enchanting magic of MG.