The Austin Seven: the original people carrier?

This Austin Seven was photographed at the Whitstable Carnival Procession held in the late afternoon of Wednesday, 11th August 1926 – yes, it was delayed by a heavy downpour. But, ahem, that’s not “a woman at the wheel,” it being driven by Mr. Charles H. Cook in the “Comic Car section. His car, get-up and passengers won him its first prize but the matron on the left looks a bit disturbed at the sight of the normally respectable Mr. Cook in drag…

The Whitstable Times reported it on Saturday: “Baby Austins. Mr. A. W. Burn’s car, which was driven by Mr. C. Cook and was full of “babies,” created much amusement. Mr. Cook, suitably attired with a car full of “babies,” Boo Scales, Trinita Scales, Olive Kirkby, Eric Lucas and Vernon Kirby, with feeding bottles, powder puffs, etc., etc., was in his glory and the judges instantly awarded him the first prize, the originality of the entry appealing to them.”

Charles Cook appeared as a comedian in Whitstable Amateur Operatic Society productions, notably as a parson in a production of “The Wedding of the Painted Doll”, which was his car theme for his entry to the 1929 Whitstable Carnival procession but that time he only came third.

Cook’s Garage at 2 & 4 Northwood Road, Tankerton opened c.1921 and ran regular services in town and to Canterbury with three charabancs but sold the service to East Kent Road Car Co. in 1926. It advertised heavily as a Clyno agency throughout the 1920s and in 1924, sold fully licensed and insured Wolseley Tens, under the “Wolseley Scheme for Motoring-out-of-Income - £50 down and 24-monthly payments of £10 3s 0d.” They held agencies for Morris and Armstrong Siddeley cars; AJS and Dunelt motorcycles; Rambler Bicycles. They also sold “wireless-sets from 12/6 and sports requisites” – Cook recharged the local hospital radio accumulators for free.

During 1924-6 they sold second-hand Buick, Chevrolet, Daimler, Morris Cowley, Humber, BSA, Studebaker, Ford, Oakland and Singer cars – some over ten-years old, a 1916 Thornycroft 2-tonner, James, Douglas, Enfield and Excelsior motorcycles with sidecars and a wicker invalid chair.

In 1926 they ran some bigger Austin 20, 6-seater Marlborough Landaulets. While conveying a passenger to central London in May, one of Cook’s taxis driven by Cyril Stroud was commandeered by the Metropolitan police to convey eight bobbies to Shoreditch where rioting national-strikers were trying to overturn charabancs. They let him break the speed limit to get them there.

Not all Austin 7s were well-treated in Whitstable: in June 1928, a pensioner, deranged by marital tribulation, purloined one from its domestic garage and pushed it off the cliff at Beltinge. And of course, it was the “motor ambulance” truck of Mr. Cook which hauled it back up the Cliff “in a terrible state and almost beyond repair.”

Sadly, Charles Cook became ill during 1930 and in July had to give up the business in some financial difficulty; the garage was put up for sale as a going concern in September. Disputedly, it continued operating under the ownership of Mrs. A. E. Campbell, with Mrs. Alice Cook, wife of Charles, supposedly as manageress but during an autumn-winter 1931 court case, it was revealed that the garage had already been sold to Mr. H. Mornington-West, who renamed it “Northwood Garages”, although when sold vacant in 1953 it was still called “Royal Native Garage.”