My Cars

I learned to drive late not taking lessons until I was 35 years old. After three lessons with an instructor (including lesson three being a baptism of fire round Marble Arch) I spent a couple of months driving everywhere in my then girlfriend’s car (Liz McAnulty) – thanks Liz. I took a couple of more lessons and passed my test despite the examiner telling me it was the worst reversing round corners he’d seen in thirty years.

In 1985 I owned my first car for around 24 hours… it was an old Citroen with a column gear shift that I couldn’t get on with so I took it back and bought my first ‘real’ car a cherry red Lada. I have no photos of either. I sold the Lada for scrap (£10) when the gear box seized as I came off the North Circular and managed to drive in second gear to my work place four miles away.

The third car was my pride and joy, a bright yellow Datsun ‘Sunny’… I managed to drive it for a year or so with no wing mirrors… I lent it to Maggie’s first husband Rob for a while and he had wing mirrors fitted as he couldn’t drive it without them. In the end the front suspension rotted away but I managed to sell the car for a few pounds more than I paid for it!

The next cars were a bright red Sierra, followed by a silver one.

…and then a Peugot 4 which was sort of Sepia – it was luxurious but kept breaking down.

My first ever car bought from new was a bright red Proton, purchased courtesy of ‘Motability’ in 1993

Which we replaced with a ‘Storm’ coloured Proton in 1997.

In 2003 we bought a Renault Scenic which we didn’t really like, so we sent it back in 2005…

Then we bought our first Hyundai – the excellent Tucson which we had until 2010 – ironically this was the first of three diesel models as the advice at the time was that they were more environmentally friendly and cheaper to run. Then the diesel price went up and targets are now set for electric cars.