My name is Ron Rutherford. I was born January 21, 1948 in Selkirk, Scotland, a small border town with tweed mills, farming, rivers, valleys, rolling hills, and old stone buildings. I was eight years old when my parents decided to emigrate to New Zealand. In 1956, we left the borders on a steam train, and then embarked on a large passenger liner, the P&O liner Orsova, from Southampton, England. The ship traveled into the Mediterranean to Italy, picked up Italian immigrants for Australia, cruised through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea to Aden, then India and around the bottom of Australia, and finally berthed in Auckland, New Zealand, where we boarded another steam train to Wellington. It was a big adventure for a kid, and it sticks in your head. At this point in my life, the travel seed was planted.
Later, in 1964, I returned to Scotland with my father to visit my grandparents and relatives. This was another big sea trip: we sailed to Australia, then up into the Timor Sea, to Singapore, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal to take a look at the Pyramids and have lunch on the Nile, then on to Naples, Italy to disembark. From Italy, we took the train through Austria, Germany, Holland, England, and, finally, Scotland. I was 16, and I remember winding through the Alps in the train, thinking about what a fantastic trip it would be on two wheels. The travel seed was sprouting.
We arrived in Scotland at mid-summer, with several weeks ahead of us. At 16, I had a New Zealand driver’s license—not obtainable in Great Britain until the age of 18—and as Dad didn’t drive, we decided to look for a cheap car so I could drive us both around. Grannie told us that Mr. Wilson up the road had an old car and couldn’t drive anymore, so off we went. We knocked on the door; no reply. Then, a voice from behind, in the outside loo, as Mr. Wilson stepped out, still pulling up his trousers over his long jeans and snapping his braces. We all walked over to an old shed, struggled a bit with the doors, and then, there it was: a black 1935 Ford Model Y. We took a look at it, wiped a bit of dust off, and opened the bonnet. Mr. Wilson tickled the carb, put the crank handle in, flicked it over, and the motor purred into life. We paid Mr. Wilson 30 pounds, and then we were off, clocking up a few thousand miles around the border country and driving over the new Forth Bridge on opening day.
On our return to New Zealand we sold the car and left by ship, from Southampton back into the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal to Port Said, then Aden, and then around Southern Australia to home, the travel seed deepening its roots all the while.
I spent four and a half years at the School of Design in Wellington, with a lot of that time spent with old cars and motorbikes. The motorbikes were all Triumphs, with the exception of one 1949 250cc BSA rigid frame, which didn’t last long. After graduating, my first job in industrial design was with GM Frigidaire in Petone, Wellington, working on cookers and refrigerators. I then moved to the Lion Breweries design unit, which covered pubs, taverns, restaurants, furniture fittings, and signage.
By this point, my grandparents were getting old, and they would not be able to come to New Zealand. I would need to make a return trip to Scotland.
So here begins the story.