A request, to John Payne, by a local hospital for lifting gear capable of dealing with a very large patient resulted in a typical John Payne reaction and led to John setting up a separate company which successfully developed, manufactured and marketed a complete range of medical lifting equipment.

With the passage of time, John Charles Payne has retired divesting himself of his many business interests, including the sale of the automotive related business at Eynsham, F.J. Payne and Son to his son Tim Payne. The Payne engineering lineage has been maintained based on Tim's formative years as an engineering craft apprentice at the Royal Military College of Science, at Shrivenham, the extensive facilities of which afford the student a very comprehensive practical training and experience. Between Shrivenham and his acquisition of F.J. Payne, Tim developed a business specialising in the application and the retro-fitting of Laycock de Normanville overdrives to Rolls Royce, W.O. Bentley and Derby Bentley cars .... and other classic cars.

When I met Tim recently he said: "We currently fit our proven de Normanville adaptation on the old vintage and classic chassis, long propshaft cars, but we have added to the Overdrive Designs Ltd (a Tim Payne company) range by developing our own unit for the modem coil sprung Land Rover, certain Range Rovers and Discovery models mated to the LR/RR five speed gearbox.

Tim continued: "Although we do service work for local garages, as every day work, on modem engines and I bless the man who decided to introduce cam belts on modem engines. We have the knowledge, skills and the equipment to completely re-work the oldest of engines. With a workforce of 25 including many experienced engineers and machinists, we have people - now over sixty that served an apprenticeship with the company."

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