All dressed up and roaring to go!
Retired Uniting Church Minister Wes Hartley (OW1964) and wife Beverley, who now live in Busselton WA, are veteran car enthusiasts, regularly travelling throughout Australia and New Zealand with Model A Ford Rallies (they have a 1928 Model A Sports Coupe). Their most recent trip was the New Zealand Rally held last March on the South Island, preceded by the Australian National Model A Meet held in Goulburn NSW in September 2022.
‘We take the “dress-ups” for such occasions seriously and for the Goulburn Rally, Beverley won the award for Best Period Dress!’ recalls Wes. ‘For quite a long time, I had been looking for a 1920s boating-style jacket to complement the vintage car wardrobe and then voilà! For the Wesley sesquicentenary year in 2016, a new school uniform was revealed and the 1920s ‘retro’ jacket fitted the bill perfectly.’
In Melbourne at the time, Wes visited the uniform shop and as an OW, gained permission to wear the jacket along with the OWCA tie, although was politely instructed ‘not to appear in any social media doing un-Wesley-like things! Suffice to say, the jacket and straw boater, with the ribbon band made out of purple and gold girl’s Wesley ribbons, has received favourable comments at every rally attended, including when published in The Restorer, the international magazine of the Model A Ford Club of America.’
Wes is looking forward to attending the Class of 1964 60-year reunion next year.