The Start of Something

It was a Saturday morning.  It must have been a Saturday as Dad worked Monday to Friday and nowhere was open on Sundays then.  I am not certain how we got to the garage, I think we walked as I don’t think anyone would have taken a two tone brush painted brown Austin 10 as a trade in.  Especially as you could see the road going past underneath where the floorboards had rotted away.

 I remember arriving and it being stood on the forecourt.  It shone in the sun in its spectacular red and black colour scheme, its chrome work fresh and dazzling, the glass spotless.   The chrome grill reflected the other cars on the forecourt and the chrome hubcaps and wheel trims looked like rotary cheese graters.  It was brand new.

The doors were opened and I climbed into the back.  It smelt fantastic.  The dashboard looked like the control panel of a rocket ship compared to the previous cars I had seen.  Dad and the salesman went to the back of the car and opened the revolutionary split tail gate with the bottom half dropping down to form a flat surface and the glass going up out of the way, just like Range Rover adopted later.  I didn’t realise at the time that the clean lines were created in the Pinin Farina design studios, home of many great Alfas and Ferraris.  It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  After a quick explanation of all the major controls and some paperwork in the office we left the forecourt and went the long way home.

I think I am the good looking one in the stripy shirt as I never much liked fishing.

It really was revolutionary.  It was a family hatchback, the first ever.  It had the split tailgate, copied by Range Rover.  It had no chassis, it was unitary construction.  Of course, at the time I knew none of this.  To me it was the first brand new car my Dad had ever owned.  It would revolutionise our lives allowing us to go to exotic destinations at speed and in comfort.  It was beautiful.

I have no idea when it was and nobody seems able to remember the registration, other than it didn’t have a letter to denote its age.  I find the lack of a letter difficult to believe, as I thought the lettering system started in 1963 and I am sure I wouldn’t have such vivid memories from the age of 4.  However, I also have memories of earlier motoring escapades which I am certain I have because family members have retold the stories so many times.  The greatest example being, Dad being overtaken by a wheel on the downhill stretch of the A5 approaching Betws y Coed, only to find, on breaking for the bend and the bridge, that it was his own rear wheel from the Austin 10!

My brain has never been very good at organising time.  I know what is in the past and I know roughly, the order.  I just don’t have many dates or times in my head.  So Jimmy and Sue’s suggestion of writing my autobiography presented a bit of a challenge.  Then I spotted the clue, AUTObiography.  One thing I can do is list the make and colour of every car my family and myself have owned, so sequence it by cars.  If I add in a couple of bicycles and the odd school bus I will have a way to organise the lot.  

So that’s the plan, I have already got the list of vehicles almost complete and have started adding detail around them.  I am not sure how long I have to write it, but I will just do a bit now and then when I feel like it. No section will be huge, I want to cover the time with the outstanding memories, not the tedious detail of everyday life. I was going to put them up as chemoblog posts, but that might confuse people, so I have started a new blog to keep them on and will post links on the chemopages.  I might revisit things I have already written, in which case I will post the whole section again.  I am also keeping them all as Word documents so I can put them together easily when a publisher comes along...............