My first car

I was thinking today about cars; as a family we didn’t have a car until I was about seven or eight years old – we lived in Cambridge and everyone had bikes so being without a car was not such a big deal then. The bus service was good so any longer journeys were easy to make too… or should I say easier to make, because the buses didn’t run very late at night, and you always had to be aware of when the last bus home was. As a child this didn’t bother me, obviously!

Our first family car was a little dark green Austin A35; it was very basic even by the standards of today’s basic models. There was no heater which not only meant the car was very cold in winter, but there was no heat on the screen to clear it of condensation or ice. The windscreen wipers did not return to a rest position but just stayed wherever they were across the windscreen, and to dip the headlights there was a button on the floor you had to dab with your left foot. There was no automatic gear box so every gear change needed a ‘double-declutch’, which  I think, meant you had to depress the clutch and move the gear stick into neutral, then depress it again to move it into the next gear. The indicator was a switch on the dashboard which looked rather like a poached egg; our car did at least have indicator lights, not a little indicator ‘flag’ which stuck out the side of the car when it was switched on. There were no seat belts, and no other safety features; it was only a two door, so the front seats had to be moved each time for us children to climb in and out.

Our next family car was a Wolsely, but my own first car was another little A35, a pale blue one this time. It was a great little car, which bombed along, and I travelled miles and miles in it. I was living in Manchester and my family were in Somerset; there were not many motorways then so my little Austin got to know the roads between very well. I think mine was a little more modern than our family one and had heating, and I think it may only have been first gear which needed the tricky double de-clutching.

I occasionally see A35s on the roads, vintage cars now and usually well-loved and well cared for, all clean and bright and shiny. Every time I see one I have such fond memories of the two A35s in my life!