About The Owner

Last Update May 2011

Andrew McKelvey the owner of HWV 135X is a 54 year old Electrical Engineer who after circa 15 years working in IT for National Grid, was outsourced to a well known IT service provider and after 4 years of there employ was made redundant in Jan 2008. Not some thing Andrew was particularly bothered about but finding a job was a pain.

Evenyually after about 8 months of 'thinking' and a couple of courses, one to be a Prince 2 Practitioner (Project Management) and another to get qualified as a teacher, decided neither was what I really wanted to do and went about getting back into engineering.

I eventually saw a role advertised on 'tinternet' and thought I can do that, I picked up the phone and asked for a job, the recipient of the call was very ammeanable and after bit of toing and froing I stared as a Network Mapping Engineer for .. National Grid, albeit a contractor.

After 12 months it was decided that I was to good to miss so National Grid took me on as a full time employee and here I have been since Dec 2009 back with NG with whom I have worked for, for over 30 years, give or take a few starting my second career pension etc etc.

The car of whom all this is really about, HWV 135X, was used as a daily drive from September 2008 until the end of April 2011 and it never let me down, needed the odd thing replacing, like an exhaust and tyres, fuel oil and water putting in but ran every day in all weather, even in the worst of winter it would get me there and newer cars couldn't even get forward motion. I digress..

Andrew was born in Billington Nr Blackburn Lancashire at the age of 0 and at 10 years old was dragged to North West Durham to live in Stanley, where his father worked nearby.

Andrew spent 27 of his formative years in Stanley, becoming an apprentice with the Post Office Telephone's, worked briefly, 8 months, at Beamish Open Air Museum, never actually knowing what he would be doing on a daily basis, he was the electrician but could be roped in to build walls, mix plaster apply paint and drink plenty of brown liquid normally at lunch time's. Biggest personal sense of achievement was re-wiring a Sheffield Tram and actually figuring out the wiring diagram for the controllers at both end's, It did eventually work.

Andrew finding the remuneration at Beamish a tad diminutive joined the then C.E.G.B. in Pity Me Durham as an Electrical Fitter (Telecomms) in 1979 and worked for the said organisation for 26 years until being out sourced to CSC Computer Science Corporation in 2003. Andrew worked his way up through the ranks to become a Telecoms Engineer and eventually swapped disciplines to become the Area's Computing Engineer and eventually Business Systems Officer. It was as Business System's Officer that Andrew relocated due to company reorganisation to Wakefield in Yorkshire where he now lives with his second wife in Ossett.

Andrew has 4 children with his first wife and his second wife has 2 of which he is step father, but thankfully for sanity reasons they don't all reside with him, they all seem to be grown up now and making there own way in the world. In fact in 2011 at the time of writing we only have one at home now.

Andrew has since, being little, been interested in things mechanical and electrical and from a young age loved taking old clocks and valve radios to bit's, never managing to get them back together again.

In his early teens Andrew supplemented his paper round money by amassing large quantities of broken bikes etc and turning the various piles of junk into workers which where sold for minimal amount's to friend's. Andrew still has old bicycles in his garage and still has 2 workers, one an old Raleigh racing bike from the mid 70's and a Claude Butler Mountain Bike from the 90's. Update: The Raleigh bike has gone now, it resides with my son Simon who uses it.

Andrew has had more hobbies than hot dinner's and all seem to revolve around making or creating things, Andrew is a avid DIY'er of any thing, no job is too small, large, daunting or complicated and so long as he saves some money is eminently happy. Oh! and he is still learning to play the guitar, some thing he has been doing since the age of 14.

Since Christmas 2010 Andrew has been amassing Meccano to play with, has a very nice Set 5 from 1959 and an accumilation of bit's that make up a Set 5a, 6a and 7 and more besides, all Red and Green circa 1948 to 64 'I think'. Had one as a kid mids 60's but no idea what set it was.

He is the latest owner of HWV 135X , there have been 7 previous owners.