Archive: “Cars”
On leaving the army in 1956 I first had a job driving a bakery van, supplying the company’s shops around Sidcup, Welling and Bromley. This lasted a week and a half before I told the manager where he could find his van. After that I worked as a mechanic at a garage in Sidcup. They […]
Read more »In the early 1970s my wife, Susan and I bought a little touring caravan, which gave us considerable pleasure, and allowed us to become familiar with many parts of the country which we otherwise may never have seen. The children, Lee, John and Sarah all became experienced caravanners in their respective childhoods, and although we […]
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When I left school at the age of fifteen, I went to work at a local garage. There I learnt to serve petrol, to squirt grease into the various points on the underside of a car and how to get cold, filthy and thoroughly miserable. I also learnt how ignorant, selfish and despicable an employer […]
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When I left the army I acquired my first “own” vehicle. What a monster. This was a Ford WOA2 V8 ex-WD staff car. The unladen weight was in the region of two tons, and it was equipped with mechanical brakes! Stopping required advance notification and this fact, combined with 3.6 litres and 85 B.H.P. under […]
Read more »I saw a VW Beetle advertised at Tunbridge Wells for £250 and went to inspect it accompanied by Eric and Lee. When I saw this particular example I knew it was not for me. It was about the first Beetle I had seen which did not have glossy paintwork. I offered the owner £200 pounds […]
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This was when I moved away from the VW badge, but stayed within the “family”. Lee and I were driving through Westerham one day and I suggested we should visit a garage, which had been well-known to us for decades. This was a former Volkswagen dealership, Wolfe Garage which had undergone a change of identity […]
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It is now some time since I told you about our cars and the world is going through a recession. In order to lend assistance to the motoring section of the British economy, the government has introduced a car ‘scrappage scheme’. Under the terms of this scheme any car which is ten years old can […]
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In January of this year I began to look around for a replacement for my 1999 SEAT Toledo, which, although still in excellent condition, had 83000 miles on the clock. I must also confess to feeling a little envious at watching Susan drive off each morning in her gorgeous Passat. I had wondered about a […]
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The summer of 2003 had not been a particularly happy time for me in terms of my health. Over the preceding three years I had been a frequent user of the local primary health care facilities, visiting the Health Centre and summoning the Doctor-on-call on numerous occasions. I experienced a variety of ills; palpitations, panic […]
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Sometime over the weekend of 18-19 June 2005 I had a hint from Sarah that John was thinking of driving to Nordwalde, near Münster, in north-west Germany and that I might be invited to accompany him. A little background information is required here. John is building a ‘project’ car in his garage, at home in […]
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