LORD Nuffield died owing his former office boy Ron Hiorns a halfpenny – and the debt has never been paid.

The debt accrued during the Second World War when young Ron left the Morris Motors’ office at Cowley to do his daily duty of collecting his boss’s copy of the Oxford Mail.

The paper cost just a penny in those days. Ron would hand over the money to the paper seller and would be reimbursed when he delivered the paper to the boss’s desk.

He recalls: “On this occasion, Lord Nuffield put his hand in his pocket and all he had was a safety pin, a trouser button and a halfpenny. He gave me the halfpenny, but I never received the other halfpenny and I never asked for it.”

Mr Hiorns, now 87, joined Morris Motors after leaving school at 14 and worked in the post room before getting the job as office boy.

One of his duties was to serve Lord Nuffield’s tea and coffee – the previous boy had been replaced after tripping and spilling coffee all over his Lordship’s suit.

Mr Hiorns tells me: “He always wore the same suit and you could see the stains for a long time afterwards.”

He remembers another occasion when Lord Nuffield drove his wife to the office to collect a new Raleigh bicycle.

“After we unwrapped it, we helped Lady Nuffield as she got on it and rode around the big table in the ground-floor office to get her balance. She then rode it all the way home to Nuffield – about 12 miles.”

Another of the office boy’s duties was to collect a basin of dripping from the canteen manager every Friday and put it in Lord Nuffield’s Wolseley car for him to take home.

“On this particular day, it was very hot and by the time he got home, it had melted and splashed all over the car’s carpets. “ Years later, when Mr Hiorns saw the car at the heritage museum at Gaydon, Warwickshire, he peeped inside and could still see the stains.

Another memory is of the visitors’ book at Morris Motors, which contained such names as Indian leader Mahatma Ghandi, the Prince of Wales and film star Douglas Fairbanks.

Mr Hiorns left Morris Motors in 1945 to join the RAF. Later, he worked in the family retail businesses before embarking on a career in engineering. He now lives in Southampton.

Memory Lane this week

 

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