It was still dark but thankfully Clive and Mary were up and about bright and early as per usual and, good egg that he is, Clive immediately invited me to join them and the children for Christmas lunch at 3pm. It was snowing steadily in Holmfirth, according to Clive, who was no doubt standing in his dressing gown looking out across the garden from the fine panelled hallway at Ash House while he barked amiably at me down the blower in his usual gruff fashion.

We had both heard the doomy Met Office forecasts warning of blanket snowfalls sweeping southwards across the country but a dusting of the fluffy white stuff was not going to prevent me from getting to grips with a slap up feed and Mary's fluffy roast potatoes really are the best. Soon I was packing father's Rover while swigging tea and cramming toast and Frank Cooper's finest into the old cakehole.

A Rover 100 may not be the ideal tool for the job, a skinny-wheeled front wheel drive car being by far the best bet for vehicular sorties on snow and ice, but beggars can't be choosers and all that. The four wheel drive Land Rover is still going strong despite 14 years' hard use on the farm¹ and it truly is the 'go anywhere' vehicle Rover's copywriters claim, but it's a bit parky under a canvas tilt and, brilliant though Maurice Wilks' marvel is, it is not eminently suitable for distance work or driving at speed. I needed to make a degree of rapid progress before hitting the approaching blizzard.

Beattie² is a game old girl but an open racing car was hardly the right machine for the task either. What is more, she is still suffering from the mystery misfire that has been plaguing her since her last hillclimb outing at Loton Park in September.³ So in the unusual event of there being no press loan hack skulking in the de Forte garages it was a case of the proverbial Hobson's Choice for yours truly.⁴ It's been two years since pater's death but I still can't bring myself to sell his last motor car, delivered new in summer 1960, six months before he popped his clogs. Just as well.

'Hurry up old man!" I had to wait an eternity for the normally cheerful but strangely belligerent Harry Haynes to switch the pumps on at the village garage. Lazy bugger – I had to drive over the bell wire 20 times before he emerged in his pyjamas to open his forecourt hut. Was he going to spend the whole morning in bed?

I settled into the Rover's comfy bench seat and with Hector's⁵ chin upon my knee, as much to get himself into an ideal position in front of the heater blower as an act of devotion to his master, we set off briskly. But maintaining a decent lick became increasingly difficult. Flakes of snow began hitting the windscreen near Stoke-on-Trent and we were soon fully under the snow belt. Visibility was down to around ten feet or so on the road from Macclesfield to Whaley Bridge and it was on the high point of this vertiginous switchback B-road that the normally surefooted Solihull saloon gave a warning lurch as, for the first time, it found compacted snow rather than slush and tarmacadam under its Avons.

From then I had to be on my mettle and with the quarterlight ajar to direct an icy blast at the de Forte phizzog in aid of concentration (much to Hector's disgust) it was a case of applying the rules of winter driving: no involuntary sudden steering movements, smoothness on the throttle, intelligent selection of gears, judicious use of brakes and bags of anticipation at all times.

Having passed only a venerable army surplus 20 ton Foden six wheeler along the way (its skilled driver finding time to give a cheery wave as I overtook, despite working hard at the time to make good use of its alternative ultra-low ratio box on a particularly slithery section) I reached the most challenging leg of the journey, the ascent of Holme Moss, without great incident.

Holme Moss is not the site of the BBC's northern television transmitter without good reason. Its summit is 1750 feet above sea level and even at the start of the climb from the Woodhead to Manchester Road the snow was whirling wildly and the drifts were banked high against the stone walls. The road would soon become unpassable. We had to get a move on.

As the aforementioned Foden pilot would have agreed, momentum is vital when making uphill progress with limited resources, whether of grip or horsepower so I was not best pleased (to use an appropriate Yorkshire-ism) when a group of dimwits leapt into the road in front of me waving their arms around like windmills just as I got the torquey Rover settled comfortably into a third gear run at 20mph and was making firm if fishtailing progress.

When it became clear I was not going to stop they scattered among their abandoned vehicles at the roadside and there was much colourful language as I saw them in my mirrors picking themselves up and dusting off the neige. Hector, of course, swore back, bouncing up and down on the well sprung rear seat cushion. Why do people always expect others to be constrained by their own limitations?

Maintaining my rhythm and concentration I drew on all I'd learned from Ronnie Adams⁶ and co at the Monte over the years and we wagged and wheelspinned our way to the top. Pausing at the Yorkshire border to clear accumulated snow and ice from the headlights, we were met by amazed transmitter staff who left their station to greet us. The last vehicle to make it up from the Derbyshire side had apparently been their own Land Rover Series II station wagon some three hours earlier.

The poor blighters were resigned to being snowed in for the foreseeable so I gave them a bottle of malt intended for Clive and asked them by way of thanks to ring same requesting he set off immediately to meet me for a livener at the Rose and Crown.⁷ Half an hour hence, having given the brakes a jolly good cooking and experiencing several one or two hairy lock to lock moments on the descent, we joined him at the bar. And it was still only 2.30pm when we scrunched onto the drive at Ash House an hour later. Needless to say by that time I had come to hold pater's last Rover in rather high regard.

Peter and Susan rushed to greet Hector and their Uncle Wilby and while Clive carved the festive bird there was time for present distribution – a charming Steiff teddy bear from that delightful toy shop near the Nurburgring for Susan and a splendid scale model of Graham Hill's BRM for Peter, who also received some a few more motorcyclist autographs for his collection (Bob McIntyre, Derek Minter and young chap called SMB Hailwood).

After a splendid roast dinner washed down with Chateau Neuf de Pape grabbed that morning from the cellar in Bales, it was time to doze in front of a roaring sitting room fire before the Dunnills, Whitakers and others called round for an evening of charades and several rounds of 'the game'. While snowflakes the size of dustbin lids fell on the Yorkshire landscape outside (everything's bigger and better in Yorkshire, according to the natives), Hector stretched himself out on the hearth rug, Peter set about building a Meccano Beattie and Susan and her mother played ultra-competitive and high-scoring Scrabble. Clive fell asleep under yesterday's Times while I sipped his best malt and caught up with the latest Auto Sport. Top hole!

⁽¹⁾ It is still in service 44 years later at the grand old age of 58. I was offered £7k for it last month. Not bad for a vehicle that has worked almost every day since pater bought it in 1948.

⁽²⁾ My adored blower Bentley. See diary extract 24 April 1958.

⁽³⁾ Pipped into second that day by a chain-driven Napier, I seem to remember.

⁽⁴⁾ Thomas Hobson ran a horse rental business in Cambridge at the end of the 16th century and became famous for the strict rotation of his livestock which gave hirers no choice in the animal they were offered. He died aged 86 prompting John Milton to declare "he had bin an immortall carrier." Odd thing to say about someone who had just kicked the bucket!

⁽⁵⁾ Since my boyhood all male de Forte house dogs have been Hectors, and all have been terrier-type mongrels

⁽⁶⁾ A fine rally driver and famous winner of the Monte Carlo rally in 1955 in a Jaguar Mk VII, for any youngsters reading this.

⁽⁷⁾ Splendid hostelry tucked away down an alley in the centre of Holmfirth, now more commonly known as The Nook.