Wheels of life

Most of us can remember the first vehicles we possessed. Not the Dinky toys, tricycles or bikes with dropped handlebars you had as a kid, but motorised road transport.

CN7480 was the registration number of the one and only car my father owned.

It was as if he had passed his test purely for the pleasure of being able to acquire and drive his big old Wolseley, not unlike the model shown, for a while. Having sampled the mixed blessings of mobility and breakdown, he was ready to move on to something else. Moving on, in dad's case, to the No 1 or Eden bus or, more likely, the Shildon AFC team coach (as secretary, not player).

On one Friday evening, we were meant to be driving down to London to see our gran - his mother - and possibly a football match while we were there. It felt as if we were embarking on a serious adventure.

Unfortunately, the Wolseley had other ideas. We didn't seem able to get farther down the road south from Drybourne Avenue, Shildon than to the railway crossings, also Shildon and barely half a mile away, before conking out.

For the short period that was dad's driving career, the crank handle was an omnipresent object of our childhood. It would be an exaggeration to say it never seemed to be out of his hands, but only just. It certainly didn't lead a forlorn, neglected life tucked away in the boot. But it proved no match for whatever defect had halted us so abruptly in Byerley Road.

The last straw, if not that evening, may well have been the trip to the Yorkshire coast. Our destination, I told myself as I cast the mind back half a century, was Bridlington, Filey or Whitby. Sandra, my sister, believes it was Scarborough.

Both of us clearly remember the journey being aborted by the small matter of a steep hill the Wolseley refused to climb. Indeed, Sandra is confident enough to say the hill in question was Sutton Bank and that when all efforts to persuade the car to conquer it failed, we had no choice but to turn back. "The scary bit was when the car started to slide backwards," she says.

My own first car was not a car but the first of two vans I was to buy. The grey Austin minivan was purchased not so much because I liked Austin minivans as because, at £30 or so, it was just about within my financial reach.

The price did not cover a serviceable subframe and the back of the van quickly began to sag alarmingly towards the road surface. Luckily, what to me seemed a fatal condition for such an old banger, represented no more than an interesting challenge to my mechanical guru of the time, a fellow reporter (sadly no longer with us) called Peter Bibby.

He said we'd do it together one weekend. In the event, I served as his largely incompetent labourer, reduced to the more menial parts of the task. But by the end of the day, the new or maybe reconditioned subframe had magically been installed and there was no ruinously high garage bill to keep me in every evening for the next three weeks.

That left one hitch. I couldn't drive. Peter had the answer to that, too. Off to Hamsterley Forest we went one Sunday afternoon for my first lesson. I had my road tax but not, at that point, my provisional licence or insurance. Pete, who seemed to be insured to drive any car he chose, had assured me that this was a private road and we would therefore be within the law.

The policeman who stopped us while - probably because - I was making my earliest inexpert manoeuvres as a driver, with Peter beside me, saw things differently. "I think you should consider your first driving lesson over," he advised, sportingly adding that he would not be taking the matter any further.

No car I have ever owned has ever come close to winning a place in the heart as if it were a true friend. The minivan got nearest.

Yes, it broke down from time to time. By all means, it lacked panache or authority as the young man about town's motor.

But how could I not feel affection towards the vehicle that got me through my driving test? I passed at the second attempt. In much later years, I was to become fairly adept at parking. But in my earliest days behind the wheel, I made Reginald Molehusband look like a natural star at reversing into the tightest of spaces. This gap in my technical command - an inability to reverse smoothly - was cited by the examiner as one of the two or three reasons why I failed at the first go.

In the minivan, of course, there was a distinct advantage. You did your reversing on the driver's side. None of that business of fixing your eyes with a mark on the back windscreen and somehow hogging the kerbside as you turned the corner. It was, frankly, a doddle. You just looked downwards with the window open, taking it slowly and checking the mirrors every so often.

By the time I re-took my test, I had spent so many hours driving the van with qualified friends by my side that I felt a seasoned motorist. The biggest threats to my chances of passing were the possibility that I would suffer exam nerves or use my own car so much as an accompanied learner that I would acquire bad habits from the familiarity regular driving brings.

Fortunately, I was offered a cancellation slot much earlier that the original date of my second test, and didn't have time to fret. I was still able to fit in a couple of lessons, but took them in the minivan rather than the driving school saloon, and sailed through.

The minivan gave up the ghost soon afterwards and was replaced, in turn, by an old Hillman Minx with column gear change, a deservedly cheap Ford Thames van and a rusty old Beetle with one of the running boards only loosely attached to the body.

Later, after moving to London, there was a Ford Escort which developed a terrifying steering defect, pulling the front wheels forcefully towards the side of the road, after my wife turned it over on one of her earliest driving lessons, in North Shields.

That was followed by a Peugeot 204 which I had foolishly decided was a romantic sort of car, but turned out to have had a cowboy repair to an unfixable engine problem. The engine decided to blow again on a long, hot drive through France, though any decent, respectful Peugeot would surely have been on its best behaviour on reaquaintance with its spiritual home if not birthplace.

"But that's not a Peugeot part," the French mechanic exclaimed with a disdainful air as he examined the lump of bodged metal coming away from the engine block. He fitted another, sans guarantie monsieur. It not only got us through the Brittany holiday and home but kept the bagnole going for a few more months until I spotted telltale drops of water in the snow as I visited wife and new baby in hospital.

For a very short time, I had a brand new Vauxhall Viva, which another driver managed to ram into as I drove it home from the dealer. That was sold to rustle up the deposit on my first flat. And later, I had a succession of other Vauxhalls, company cars from the Daily Telegraph, during a stint as a district reporter covering the South West and South Wales.

My present car is a BMW. Sounds impressive? Shouldn't! I've had it for 11 years. It has 180,000 miles on the clock but runs like a dream.

And in keeping with my Frank Spencer approach to practical matters, it has even survived an engine blow-out of its own, also in France. Some idiot - and I cannot think which one - had forgotten to screw the oil cap back on after topping up before leaving London on a jaunt to Honfleur. It was at that time a company car. The company somehow saw its way clear to regarding this as a non-disciplinary matter and paid for some very expensive repairs.

If they'd seen me getting in Peter Bibby's way 30 years sooner as he wrestled with old minivan and new subframe, or if they'd been in the car behind my Ford Anglia from the Northern Echo pool when I managed to spin it round twice on an icy road near Heighington, they'd never have allowed me anywhere near a company car in the first place.

Comments

[Bill Taylor]

I remember that Hillman Minx of yours but I don't recall the Minivan.
I have a Peter Bibby story, though, regarding his own driving test. He'd had a series of 3-wheelers, which could be driven on a motorcycle licence. One day, when we doing that journalism block-release course at Darlington Tech, he was giving me a lift from Bishop but made the mistake of going the West Auckland way, rather than through Shildon. He had a Bond 3-wheeler at the time (far less exciting than his Messerschmidt, in which driver and passenger sat in tandem, just like in a flying Messerschmidt). Halfway up Bildershaw Bank, the Bond ran out of steam (though there was lots of smoke) and Peter had to get out and readjust the clutch, which he did with admirable deftness.
Anyway, when he came to sit his driving test for cars, as I recall in his own Mini, he said that everything went fine until he was turning back into the test centre, in what was then Station Approach. It was a wide entrance and an old man was crossing. Peter told me he was so intent on avoiding the guy while not visibly swerving around him, that he knocked the poor man's walking stick out of his hand. All the examiner said was, "Well, you'd better book your next test while you're here." I think Peter was a little chagrined that he didn't get any points for marksmanship.

[Dumdad]

There's an award awaiting you at my blog.

[Dumdad]

Reginald Molehusband? I had to look that up! I guess it's because I'm so much younger than you....

[Bill Taylor]

Did you find a picture of him? As I recall (and, admittedly, my mind for ancient TV ephemera is not as keen as Colin's), there was a certain physical resemblance between Randall and Molehusband in addition to the parallels to be found in their driving skills.
But I'm sure Colin has improved.

[silversmoggie]

That photo of the Wolsely certainly brings back memories Colin - the shiny brown seats that were freezing cold in winter and sticky in summer, various members of two or three families (Goddards/Reynolds/us) squashed into the 5 seats - Mum hanging on for dear life if we ventured faster than 20 mph. She said we should travel at a speed that allowed us to see every flower in the countryside.
I remember that time we had to turn back from the visit to (probably) Scarborough because we got stuck on Sutton Bank. The scary bit was when the car started to slide backwards.
Ahh nostalgia!!!

[Colin Randall]

I bow to my sister's memory, even if she does hide behind that Boro-inspired nom de guerre. Scarborough it must have been, so I have amended the posting.

[Pete Sixsmith]

I too was called upon as a qualified driver to sit beside Colin in his mini-van. I had passed my test despite my fathers attempts to teach me to drive and although not insured I went with him to a flat at Ferryhill Station. I think he was living there at the time. So began my relationship with Ferryhill which has lasted to this day - unlike the flat/house which was recently pulled down.Even at 18, I had difficulties getting in orout of a minivan. Wouldn't like to try it now. And thanks for reminding me of Reginald Molehusband - a classic Public Information Film.

[Bill Taylor]

He lived at Ferryhill Station? This is a hitherto undocumented episode in Colin's life. Elucidation, please. Was it your "loins of pork for Coundon" phase?

[Keith]

Like Colin, I have fond memories of my first set of wheels: a rather stylish white Morris Minor with red leather interior and, er, a floor so rotten, you could lift the carpet and watch the ashphalt rushing by when it hit top speed of 35mph going down Detling Hill, Kent. It cost an astronomical £60 but was unfortunately reluctant to turn corners owing to a stiff, probably rusted, steering column. It rather restricted my journeys to straight lines or one or two off-road jaunts across grass verges. I decided to have it repaired but gave up the ghost when I had to pick my consultant mechanic from the ground to which he had fallen laughing.
A wonderful drive down memory lane, Colin. Keep them coming.
Keith

[Colin]

I never even thought of living at Ferryhill station.