Some of my experiences with cars
My first experience with cars was when I was very young. Outside our bungalow, in the drive, which was also to the garage showroom, there was parked an old Rover - squarish shape. Someone had left the ignition key in. I was naturally curious so I got in and turned the key. The engine leapt into life and ran into the wall. Fortunately it was only a couple of yards away. They must also have left it in gear, which you did in those days because brakes weren't very good. I don't think I got into trouble but I suspect it upset someone.
I also have memories of a Lanchester, also parked in the drive. It had a preselector gear box - I have a feeling I had a go in that too - I was very young, daren't guess how young.
Our first car was a 1936 Standard Flying Big 12, it was a Standard Flying 14 with a 12 engine. I was eleven when my Dad bought it, that would make it around 1949. The story was that it had been laid up during the war but it wasn't in all that good condition, still it was thirteen years old and corrosion prevention wasn't all that good in those days and materials were scarce.
Ours was like this, the same shape and proportion but bigger. Here it is, found this photo later. It started off black, nearly all cars were black after the second world war (Henry Ford - You can have any colour you want as long as it's black), then became dove grey before becoming black again after we'd done a lot of work on it.
I was eleven years old when my Dad bought it and that was when I started to learn to drive on the long driveway at the side of our house.
My Uncle had a light grey one and also one converted into a shooting brake, estate car in today's language.
My dream car at this stage in my life was the MG TC:
A police patrol man came into my Uncle's shop and told me I didn't want one of them, they were uncomfortable and horrible to drive - the Police had them as patrol cars, he had one outside the shop.
It took me three times to pass my test, I didn't have any lessons, I could handle the car but my road craft was lacking at the start. I started to drive on roads the day I became 17, 1st June 1955. I finally got my licence on the 6th January 1956.
I took the first test shortly after my 17th birthday as I said above I could handle the car but my seeing of road signs was questioned. There was a road that comes to a roundabout in an ambiguous way, well that's my excuse. I turned right, as instructed, but I should have gone round the roundabout first! So I failed, the highway code question asked of me was what does this sign mean?
For the second test I borrowed my Auntie May's new Standard 8, it may have been a 10.
Compared to our 12 it was light and easy to drive. Too easy! The examiner said I would be alright on a race track but not suitable for the ordinary roads! My Uncle was a butcher so there was a lingering smell of meat in the new car. There was a fly in the car, no doubt due to the meat, which landed on the examiner's clip board. Of course he flicked it off and I thought that was the signal for my emergency stop! He wasn't best pleased with the fly, the meat smell and me.
My Auntie May had got her driving licence during world War 2 but had lost all her confidence.
You could get driving licence then by just applying for one - no tests then! She never actually drove it on her own or ever drove again. I offered to sit with her but she wouldn't do it.
I took the third test in our old car again and passed but I thought that was the worst I'd driven in all the three tests? 6th January 1956.
I'm not sure exactly when, it was just after we'd restored it, I did a lot of the work including the welding, that I wrote it off in a storm outside the police station on the A6 in Little Hulton. Janet was with me, I was taking her back to the nurses' home in Irlam O' The Heights, Salford. That must have been 1957, it was just before my ONC exam, which I got the Prize for! Must have been chock-a-block with adrenaline.
My Dad's next car was a 1938 Jaguar SS 1.5 litre saloon. This had a souped up Standard 14 engine, SU carbureted. We did a lot of work on this one too. We overhauled the engine and I remember painting the block cream, it looked beautiful. I painted the car black and where and bright green. Four of us took it down to Cornwall in 1959. We drove through the night and had a week in Newquay followed by touring south round the coast and along the south coast into Devon.
My brother wrote that one off. He neglected to top the oil up and one of the connecting rods came through the side of the block. A new or even used engine would have cost more than the car was worth and my Mum and Dad didn't have much money. They really struggled to give us a good life or to keep us off motor bikes. My Dad had come of his motor bike some time before we were born and had laid in hospital with a cracked skull for a period.
While we were 'doing up' the Jaguar I started to build a racing car, a converted Austin 7 van, an Austin 750. This was a poor man's introduction into racing cars. Most of the activity was in the south but I was mad keen, mad being the operative word. That was when I wasn't playing rugby of course, my other love. Janet had finished with me by then - I was much too serious and restricting, still can't enjoy myself like other people do.
I had two wrecks, vans, which my Uncle found for me. They were just like the photograph but from the door rearwards they had a van body. I never finished it because my new girlfriend became pregnant, which led to marriage on 28th January 1961 and a move to Wigan. My dad eventually sold the part completed car to a friend of his at work for £25.
It may have looked something like this. There was another reason why I was losing interest. I was now well into my student apprenticeship and was learning a lot about vehicles and there were things that I would have done differently with my newly acquired knowledge.
My brother had by this time managed to get an Austin A50 saloon, more or less identical to the one above for my Dad, i.e. us. The one on thee left is similar and the second one is our actual car.
This was an almost new car, compared to the old wrecks we were used to so we felt like lords.
Living in Wigan made sharing the car difficult so, not knowing that you could buy a house without much money, didn't know what a mortgage was - 22 years old at that! We bought my first real car an basic Mini. A fantastic car. I was living in Wigan and the dealer in Wigan couldn't get one so my friend Stuart at work arranged to get us one each from a garage in Blackpool. Not many days later the Wigan garage came knocking on the door to tell me they had got one, which I could have.
Here you can see me abusing it taking part in a Hill Climb event organised by Chorley Motor Club. I also used it on a rally with my Brother driving! Whilst bringing another friend with me from work to Wigan station, when he got out the wind caught the door and made a small dent and pulled the bottom hinge off. "Act of God" said the dealer so I had to repair the hinge myself, didn't touch the dent. My Dad got a new restraining strap made at work. The family that bought it off us were quite happy about the dent.
I went off MGs when they brought out the TF. Started to like Morgans and the Triumph TR2. I also liked thr Triumph Roadster, I guess the first TR.
The Triumph Roadster - The Triumph TR2 - and The Morgan
I really loved the TR2, they were raced at Le Mans for many years, always finishing - absolutely reliable. I worked out that by the time I could afford a sports car I would be too old to appreciate it. I'm not too old, 73, but too sensible now to spend money and put up with unnecessary discomfort - climbing in and out, draughts, wind, water.
This is almost identical to our second car, which you can see in the other two photos. By now we'd sold the Mini to raise the deposit on a house. With a lot of help from Norma's Father we bought this 1962 Austin A60. It was four years old I think so it must have been 1966. It journeyed to France, St. Gorges de Didon, with four adults, two children and a large tent and camping equipment on the roof. I didn't realise until we were on our way home that it was riding on the rear bump stops! It was really abused.
Later I fitted a new timing chain out in the open on the drive at Ennerdale Road - how did I manage to do jobs like that?
Vauxhall Victor. I got one like this as a result of a challenge. Sue's Dad said I could have it if I could get it going. It had laid in his garage ever since he'd got promoted and was given a company car. I got it going easily enough but it cut out on test runs. I traced the fault to the ignition switch. I found a little switch in Dad's garage and fitted that which solved the problem. We used the car to bring Sue, Steven and Trudie up to Leyland on 4th January 1970. Because we already had the A60 we sold it to my brother for £50 and he got a few years out of it.
Sue also had the use of her mother's top of the range automatic Vauxhall Viva, a lovely little car. Sue used it to run about while she was staying in Studham and to pick me up and return me to the railway station when I travelled down by train at weekends.
The A60 served Sue, I and the children well. The first photo is 1970, camping at Langdale and the second one is camping at Llanbedrog. We got rid of it in 1972.
We were able to buy year-old cars from the works management car plan. We bought a white Maxi. This didn't last very long because I got promoted onto the work's car scheme in 1974 so we ordered a new white Maxi. A fantastic car!
I could have got used to a Triumph Spitfire
Then a Morris Marina Coupe followed by a Triumph 1300. Things weren't good at work so we had to hang on to that car for three years.
Around 1978 we went from the ridiculous, the Triumph was too small for two adults and four children but we were hard pressed for money buying our current bungalow, to the sublime - an Austin Princess 2200.
Things had gone wrong at BLMC, the engines were slightly out of place so we got them cheap on the rental scheme. This would be 1978.
Our next car was a Morris Ital 1300 - 1980? A big change from the 2200, which we had grown to like, very comfortable, reliable car.
Not sure when ( between 1969 and 198?) but in Studham I had the chance to drive a TR6, which I also liked but beyond me. It belonged to Sue's Dad's neighbour. I helped him with a puncture and he let me drive it back to his house.
When the Austin Maestro came out we had a succession of them. I really loved those cars, they seems so much up market from what we'd had before.
Summer 91
Then we became Leyland Bus, which morphed into Volvo Bus. Volvo tried to take the cars away but we ended up with a basic Volvo 440 - petrol - MHG 620x. Then they abandoned the scheme and gave us the car
Some time later we got onto the Volvo Cars scheme and rented a White Diesel 440 Sports - M742 UFC.
A lovely car which we kept until we got our next car, a Vauxhall Agila - from the sublime to the ridiculous but we loved it.
2004, July. PK 52 LZL. This car belonged to Sue's Uncle Bert. He was told he shouldn't drive any more so he put it up for sale, which he told Sue when she called to see him on her way back from taking three of us to Liverpool to sail Toggenberg back to Glasson. We went to look at it and decided there and then to buy it. It had only 1300 miles on the clock and one careful owner. I drove it home, Sue driving the Volvo.
Trudie had a Renault Scenic for a while and there was a period when she used to lend it to us. Can't remember why but I remember it was a bit up-market from our Agila.
FH 07 WEP, a little Fiesta. We'd damaged our car and we got this as a courtesy car for a couple of weeks in 2010.
Oh dear, we've damaged our car again and this time the insurance company say it isn't economical to mend it so it's been towed away
They gave us a Toyota Yaris, FH61 SVN, for a while while we got sorted out with a replacement car. This was different from our little utility MPV - satnav, air conditioning, key less ignition etc.
We wanted the same car, an Agila or a Wagon R, but a later model, however they went out of production in 2006 or thereabouts. We we're keen on the Agila replacement, lower down and bigger. We had a look at the new Agila and still not enamoured. We found a Wagon R at Blackburn but it was seven years old. The children were adamant that we should get a new car. We ummed and ahhed and eventually decided on the Splash, the Wagon R replacement, and we opted for a demonstration car at BCC Motors Blackburn, Suzuki dealers. You can only have white or red if not wanting metallic. We didn't want another red and the white could take some time as it would have to be ordered come from the factory, at least a month, that's why we chose the white demo car - 1000 miles and five months old.
They loaned us this Diesel Swift, PE12 FUD, until the Splash was ready to take away. Although a diesel this was a higher performance car.
The Splash
Suzuki Splash, 997cc - PN12 ERX
My dream car:
Mercedes - only white.
I always loved this Classic Car - Bugatti and
the 1928 Mercedes- Benz
but we've always been a one-car family and spent our money on other dreams!