Major Award

Harry Webster, Engineering Director at Standard Triumph died early in 2007. To honour the man, the Standard - Triumph Forum decided to instigate a new award, the Harry Webster award. This would be presented to the person who has made the greatest personal contribution to the well- being of the Standard Triumph movement over the previous 12 months.

All Clubs in the Standard Triumph Forum were invited to nominate an individual for the preceding year. Your Clubs nomination was for Brian Parkes, your pre-1948 Spares Officer

The Committee of your Club was delighted to hear that our momination, was accepted as successful for 2008. Brian is shown above, accepting the award from Leslie Phillipps, President of the Stag Owners Club, at the STMD at Prescott Hill Climb

Here follows the wording of our nomination, which I hope gives you a flavour of why this award is so highly appropriate for Brian.

"Harry Webster Award - Nomination

This is a formal nomination by the Committee of the Standard Motor Club,

We would like to nominate Brian Parkes as the club's nominee for the Harry Webster Award 2008.

Brian's background is as a time-served engineer in the Motor Industry where he built up an incredible amount of knowledge in Standard Triumph products and the Flying Standard range in particular. He has run a 1947 Standard 14 saloon which was originally a customers car, from the early 1950's to the present day, first as an everyday car, subsequently for pleasure and more recently to shows all over the country. It is a credit to Brian that one would think his car came out of Canley only yesterday, but the reality is he has maintained it in the same immaculate condition for the whole of its 60 year life! At the same time Brian has built up a reputation as a fount of knowledge for Flying Standard and Prewar Standard cars, giving advise and support to members carrying out repairs or restorations all over the country.

Now retired and looking for something to do, Brian volunteered to take over the running of the Pre 1948 spares Warehouse* for the Standard Motor Club in May last year. In that time Brian has organised the collection of the spares from a number of stores, to a barn he helped to build in Surrey, where he has subsequently racked and catalogued them. Brian is unfazed by the fact that 90% of them have no part number, as he recognises them all as old friends! As there is no support from the Classic Car trade for these cars, Brian single-handedly sources parts for grateful members all over the world from all manners of unlikely sources.

Never happier than when is up to his elbows in crates of oily second-hand parts, this unassuming and cheerful man is exceptionally generous of his time and knowledge. He has easily doubled the turnover of the Spares Warehouse in his tenure and through his ingenuity, resourcefulness, contacts and dedication to the cars he has already played a major part in their long-term survival, We hope he will continue to do so for a long time to come.

This award if presented only starts to thank Brian for the contribution he is making to the ST movement and is absolutely well deserved.

The committee of the Standard Motor Club

* The Club runs 3 Spares Warehouses for the 200 different models of Standard cars"

If you need Spares for a pre-1948 Standard, click here

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