Speaking of cars, this the first recorded car in my family. You can just make out my father David in his beloved MG – picture taken by my mother Phyllis on the Nant-Gwynant Pass in Snowdonia. They also took it to Scotland on their honeymoon in about 1937. Other cars of his that I can remember are an early Vauxhall DPW 155, when we lived at 15 Brian Avenue, Norwich and I was about four. Then a Rover and finally a Lea Francis, which he had when he died in 1956.
My mother learned to drive in the early 60s and had two or three Morris 1000s (one at a time). Then a fairly primitive Vauxhall in which we went to Switzerland in 1971. She also had a Renault 5, which I liked a lot, and then later a Metro. Possibly some others. I learned to drive in her Morris 1000, taught by a friend, David Green, and passed the test without having an official lesson. My wife and son did the same – both taught by me.
My first car was a black Ford Prefect, which I bought for about £100 from the Coomes – friends in London. I could just about service it, after being shown how by the husband of Diane Jones (so Mr Jones, then). She was Jim Douglas’ secretary on Christianity Today magazine in London – sadly died not long ago in Norfolk. The Ford Prefect also went to Switzerland.
We then moved on to an Austin 1100, which I bought from a garage in North London and which I suspect had been in a fairly serious accident. It tended to grind to a halt in wet wheather because of damp on the distributor. Once in Norwich I sold it for £70 and bought a white Fiat 500 for £700 from the Eagle Garage on Newmarket Road. It was a demonstrator. Very rudimentary vehicle which gradually fell apart: I just managed to get it to Pointers on Aylsham Road to pick up its replacement, a red Fiat 127. This was followed by a blue version of the same car, obtained from Woodland Car Sales a couple of years later. I was quite fond of both of them. We then moved upmarket slightly and got a rust-coloured Fiat Strada which was a very heavy vehicle. We swapped this fairly quickly for a Renault 21 – a lovely car to drive, if not totally reliable. I remember the fuel pump going on the way down to Sussex. This car was “written off” in a slow-speed collision with a Volvo at the junction of Thorn Lane and Rouen Road in Norwich and replaced by a blue Fiat Tipo. This was around 1990.
I wasn’t too impressed with the Tipo – it seemed far too heavy for its size. But in the early 90s I was driving pool cars as part of my job, and one of them was a Mazda 323, with pop-up headlamps. This was such a great car that it was not long before I sold the Tipo and bought one – a red one, from Wrights on Cromer Road. A couple of years later I changed it for a green one, which I kept for many years and which I enjoyed enormously. But eventually it had to go and was replaced by a black 323 Sport at the end of 2002, when I retired.
In September 2004 we bought a black MX5 Euphonic for Dot, who was still working. She retired at the end of 2005; she still has the MX5, but we have now bought a new Mazda 3 Sport – this time blue and a saloon instead of a hatchback. It arrives in March.
