Barry Furness was minding his own business one morning at his Hoveton home in the Norfolk Broads area, when a large, white, covered trailer pulled up in front of his house.
His wife, Glenys, suggested he best go outside and see what was going on. Barry immediately thought it was something being delivered to the house next door.
It wasn’t, it was a special delivery for him. The driver opened the back of the trailer to reveal a vintage car.
As it was unloaded Barry realised it was the same vehicle, he’d spotted a few months previously on a trip to visit his daughter in North Yorkshire. He’d noticed a rather lovely pre-war Rover on display at a garage, but merely while driving past it. He’d followed up the sighting with a bit of an investigation to find out more online, but that was as far as it had gone.
He was looking at that same car as it rolled off the trailer in front of him. Barry recalls trying to work out at that moment how and why the North Yorkshire garage had sent it to him just to look at.
“What’s going on?” he said, puzzled. “It’s yours, it’s your birthday present,” Glenys told him. He was understandably speechless with a tear in his eye. Well, who wouldn’t be?
With the help of their daughter, Clare, Glenys had pulled off the ultimate surprise. Although it was 18 months early, it was Barry’s 70th birthday present. She knew he’d been looking at an Austin Seven but, in the end, decided it wasn’t right. She’d remembered the fleeting interest he’d shown in the claret coloured Rover.
To spring the surprise properly, it was a bit of a gamble to buy it over the phone. The garage people were quite surprised, “Are you sure?” they’d asked. “I took a big chance,” Glenys confessed. They told her all about the car and offered to deliver it to Norfolk. So, the deal was done.
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