Hello, I'm Siôn (the Welsh spelling of Shaun, Sean etc). I'm originally from Anglesey, but have been living in Cambridge for ten years now, having moved here at 18 to be a student. My day job is desk-based, unlike a lot of you who are more engineering types - I'm a solicitor dealing with wills and probate. That's my excuse for having only minimal (but hopefully growing!) mechanical knowledge.

I like to think that I am a slightly unstereotypical person, and so I tend to like things which are unusual to like, but don't get enough love or respect from the general population.

My love of 300s comes from my strange nostalgia for the early 1980s, a period during which I wasn't even alive! I like the ordinary cars from that period, particularly base models, such as Metros, Fiestas, Escorts, Cortinas, Chevettes, various Citroens etc. Volvos are my main passion though, and particularly the 340 because my mother had a D-reg and my uncle a Y-reg model.

I like multiples of everything, not because I'm greedy (honest!), but because I want one of every variety available. For example, I have 1977, 1979, 1980 and 1985 340s, and ideally I would also like to fill in the blanks. I also have three 3-speed bicycles (a '74 Triumph rod-breaker, a '78 Raleigh Superbe and an '81 'Mentor'), and about 30 old GPO dial telephones of mainly 706 and 746 type which I've been collecting since I was very small (this is only a selection - obviously I have at least one in every colour made of both the 706 and 746):


I have also collected lots of car brochures, probably for most major models sold in the 1980s. Of course, I have all the 340 brochures from 1976-1991.


I was also a huge Star Trek fan in my younger days, particularly TNG, DS9 and Star Trek 2, and used to build models and props (home-made too) in my spare time.


My other passions are cooking (my 70s Kenwood Chef is my 'daily') and I have quite a large collection of pop music from the 1970s to date. I should go on PopMaster, but I'm not brave enough!


There, that's probably enough about me.

I used to have a red GPO 746, it was great at limiting international calls (too much finger whirring) and god it was fecking loud after those modern quiet things. Certainly one to scare the crap out of me in the morning if I got an early doors call.

I used to have a photocopy of a diagram showing where all the connectors and links went when converting those phones from hard-wired to the wall to BT-style plug leads.

I love those phones, such a well thought out engineering design. Similar thoughts about the Kenwood too!

Keep up the great work - that phone collection is quite haunting.

Hi Sion.
You have a wonderfull collection of cars and phones. We had the white one up untill a couple of years ago
and it was still working as an extention upstairs. As for the modol years, i will give you first refusal on
my 1983 chuggle bus if i ever sell . The only problem with that is you would have to fly to Belfast
and drive it back
Cheers Mark.