Cars

I was brought up in an era of mechanical unreliability. Cars were always breaking down, punctures were commonplace, engines consumed and leaked oil, a grease gun was part of the maintenance kit, and passengers were sometimes required to help push a car up steep hills. So just to make cars work was part of life, despite the advertisements of the day showing happy people driving around an ideal countryside with hair in the slipstream and smiles on faces. It was not usually like that.

I suppose because they needed so much attention, and there were comparatively few cars about, they seemed to form personalities of their own, sometimes volatile ones. You loved them or hated them, but you could not ignore them. Or if you did so, it was at your peril. Even people with no bent for mechanical matters, soon acquired some essential knowledge of how cars worked and how to deal with trouble.

A good example was my first car, a twenty year old 1929/1930 MG Type M Midget, given to me by a cousin. It was open, sporty, and just the kind enjoyed by girl friends - except when it broke down. I had to learn how to cure an oil leak from its overhead camshaft, about its SU carburettor, the Autovac, and how to treat the slipping clutch by squirting fluid from its Pyrene fire extinguisher into the clutch housing. To own it was an adventure too far. So, as it had been a gift, I gave it away to a Norfolk family of friends, where it may still languish in a shed or barn.

 My brother was an engineer who knew a man who made up Austin 7 cars from bits of others. I asked if he would make me a sporting version, which he did. Two seats, crab-tracked, lousy brakes, and hot exhaust burns if you were not careful when climbing in or out, it was a fun car, except when I was once just managing to pass a lorry of cows when one of them relieved herself and soaked me.

Then came a wedding where I entertained fellow ushers on the way to the reception, when a lamp-post jumped out in front of me. I left the car where it fell. Recovered somehow, it became unstable at speed. Not even Colin Chapman, of Lotus, could find anything wrong. So I sold it to a suited man from the City with fear that he might sue me for something. He did telephone to ask about some aspect of the car. I asked how fast he had managed to take it, to be told that it was something like 35 miles per hour. 

I was painting from nature, often from the banks of rivers. And selling the results rather well. So I thought that a vehicle in which I could transport a fibreglass pram dinghy would be an ideal way to explore and paint river scenes. It might also be good as a camper. So I had a coach builder make a body to fit onto a Volkswagen flat-back. It was a job to handle the dinghy in and out of the van, and river banks often consist of deep mud. It was a failure and had to go.

As a stage designer I was asked to join a man, called van Bunnens, to paint pantomime scenery on ice. It was a cold job but I had retained my wartime flying boots. At least my feet were warm. The pay was good and I had spare time to buy a clapped-out builder's Ford 8 flat-back, and create a streamlined body with ply and canvas roof. In mind was a camping grand tour of Europe. As this proposed journey was in the summer, and hot, I fixed two air scoops on to the roof - the kind of ventilators on old-fashioned ships to cool the boiler room. When wet, the scoops would be turned to point backward and two corks sealed them off. I added a mighty air-blasting horn (the kind used in intercontinental lorries), a compass and an aircraft altimeter that told of the car's altitude and also acted as the weather forecasting barometer. The seat of canvas-covered foam rubber was canted up in the front, and the back rest leant backward. It was made to measure (for me) and extremely comfortable. For liquid effluent a funnel lead to a tube that lead to the road beneath.

Toward the end of the grant tour, the engine was reluctant to start in the mornings. So it was necessary to park for the night on steep downward slopes for a rolling start each day - which also meant me sleeping at the same angle as the car.

Although the space in the wheel arches that I gave for the wheels to rise over bumps in England were quite adequate, for the dreadful roads in Europe at that time (1952) they were not. So, often the smell of scoured rubber would follow the noise of tyres hitting the wooden wheel arches. Yet, after three months and three days, with 5,227 miles of driving on the clock, there was no sign of wear on the Michelin tyres. I sold the car to a titled Scottish laird, and for all I know that car is still frightening the hell out of highland sheep.

The Citroen 2 CV that I next owned I loved for its simplicity and originality. Air-cooling was sensible, centrifugal clutch, clever. The suspension, when the front wheels told the rear ones what to expect, was mightily original, even if it tilted the bodywork when negotiating a corner. And if one changed the two spark plugs each autumn, it started first time in all weathers.

Needing a bit more space for painting kit I moved on to an Ami 8. This was simply a 2 CV with a station wagon body. Rust was its only problem.

A Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet came next. And what a lovely car it was - in all weathers. The only snag was driving through pools of water of unknown depth in the road. A good splash allowed water to reach the electronics, when the engine stopped. I gave it to a son who, I believe, crashed it.

Lastly came an automatic Toyota RAV 4. This is still in the family. And after 24 years of life on the road has not missed a beat.

So, from a 1929 MG M Series to the automatic RAV 4, I have experience not only a lot of highs and lows, but the pleasure of seeing an enormous advance in automotive engineering.