A BASINGSTOKE couple have shared their memories of a very special hospital dash after spotting a vintage AA truck at a Hampshire car show. 

Shirley and Trevor Martin attended the British Motor Show in Farnborough in August, to display their own classic car, a 1963 Humber Spectre.

Whilst at the show, the couple spotted the Bedford J3 AA truck on the AA’s Heritage stand.

The couple explained to the team on the stand how they’d first met in 1973 in Albion Street, Hull, where Shirley worked as an RAC Membership representative while training to be an RAC ‘Patroless’, and Trevor, who had become a Leeds-based AA Patrol after transferring from Reading would stand by between jobs with his RAC opposites near to the RAC shop.

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The couple got along with each other very well and soon became an item, marrying three years later, in 1976. The day after marrying her new AA Patrol husband, and purely by coincidence, Shirley was made redundant by the RAC.

Two years later, the Bedford J3 recovery truck that Trevor was driving during his late shift turned ambulance after he received a call on the truck’s radio to say that Shirley had gone into labour and that he’d need to get to her mother’s house as soon as possible to collect her.

Trevor got straight back onto the two-way radio to request clearance from his AA sergeant to use the truck to get Shirley to the hospital. Once clearance was given, Trevor used his driving skills to negotiate the tight streets of her mother’s council estate and soon helped her to the relative comfort of the truck’s back seat.

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The excited couple managed to get to the hospital just in time for Paul, now 45, to be born happy and healthy a short time later.

After a few years, the couple moved to Basingstoke, where they remain happily married, often passing the AA’s Fanum House building when out and about in their classic Humber. The Martin family, now much larger, regularly attend car shows as a group, but the presence of the AA Bedford J3 made this one particularly special and evoked the happiest of memories.

The AA’s fleet has moved on considerably since the 1970s, both technically, and in numbers and these days boasts in excess of 200 recovery trucks and more than 2000 of its famous yellow vans – home to more than 2,500 patrols. The one thing that has remained constant is its patrol’s determination to continue the AA’s tradition of putting people first, no matter the circumstances.

The British Motor Show is an annual event created to celebrate a range of vehicles, including trucks, motorbikes, and cars.