Dashboard

 

It is many years since I crashed my four or five year old face into the shiny dashboard of my father’s Jaguar Mk 2, I think it was. Cars, particularly Jaguars were Dad’s passion at that time and I was still in my ‘Go faster, Daddy!’ phase. No speed limit, no seat belts, and no fear, until he had to slam the brakes on that day. A bumped head, with a growing lump, loud crying from me and worries about ‘What will Mummy say?’ from him as he consoled me. He wasn’t driving fast at that moment. Something happened and he had to brake. It was before I started wearing glasses, luckily. We lived in Lancaster at the time and Sunday afternoons when our pubs closed between 2pm and 7pm, were family gathering times. Our family of licensees across Lancaster and Morecambe, regularly went out for a countryside picnic in a convoy to Crook O’ Lune, Caton or Hornby. Someone’s car would break down on the way home and all the men would be under the bonnet with calls of ‘Try it now!’ and ‘What’s on the dash?’

I took no notice of the dials and switches on the dashboard. All I knew was that some lit up and others didn’t, and there was a button to press to start the engine. It didn’t always work. Sometimes it made a slow, groaning sound and nothing happened until Dad, with much muttering, fixed it.

The dashboard started to make sense when I began driving and learnt basic car care from my dad. My first car was my beloved Austin A40. It was a gift from my dad and after the initial disappointment, which I kept to myself, I loved it to bits. I’d hoped for something more appealing, like a Mini, or a bright green Ford Capri. An Austin A40 didn’t offer much wow factor to a trendy seventeen year old. It was clean and tidy, had low mileage and was very reliable. The plastic dashboard had minimal things on it, very basic, but it had everything I needed.

Dad liked to tinker about with his cars. He wouldn’t get much joy these days with sealed units and computerised dashboards. Our car has all manner of things monitored. It tells us if a tyre has incorrect pressure. Dad would have relied on his eyes and checked them every week with the oil and water.

Dashboards have their place on everything, not just motor vehicles. Computers, mobile phones and household appliances. We had the misfortune to have two items reach the end of their useful lives within a week or two, and around Christmas when they are most needed. Our tumble dryer, after serving us well every winter for twenty-eight years, squeaked for the last time, then the twenty year old dishwasher released a puff of electrical smoke. Both have been replaced recently but what a search to find something suitable. I don’t want anything complicated, just something to do the job, and I don’t need anything connected to a phone app, though the new dryer has that facility, should I change my mind. Both appliances, nice and efficient, I must say, require ‘programming’ to turn them on, by going through the dashboard and clicking this and that. I’m used to simple things that turn on and off. I could choose how many minutes I wanted my old dryer to tumble. Now I have to program the new one, depending on fabric care and hope for the best. 

My Haiku,

The makers include
Instructions and warning lights
On everything now.

So complicated
With far too many features.
I prefer simple.

I don’t need an app,
Just ‘off and on, stop and go’
Suits me perfectly.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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A 1 - Cherished Number Plate

The first car registration plate was A1 and issued by London County Council in 1903. From 1^st January, 1904 it was compulsory for every motor vehicle to be registered and have a registration plate. In modern times, it became a status symbol to have a private registration on a car, personal initials, for example, and the fewer letter and numbers, the higher the value. The most recent information I have found on the A1 plate is that it is registered to a Mini Cooper in London and the estimated value of the plate is between five and ten million pounds. The lovely photo from my I Spy Car Numbers book reminds me of one of my dad’s Jags. He never indulged in a ‘cherished number plate’.

Once, a long time ago, I think I had a ‘cherished number plate’. It was on a Vauxhall Viva, circa1969. I bought the car in desperation in 1980. Home from visiting family in the U.S.A., I needed wheels but had very little money, fifty pounds, in fact. Fifty pounds couldn’t buy much of a car, but sometimes there might be a ‘good runner’ for sale with only a month or two left on its MOT. It was worth reading all the adverts in the used car section of the local paper. This was one such car. Many shades of green, lots of filler on the sills and a very snatchy clutch, it was worth every penny of my fifty pounds. And my dad loved tinkering with cars, which was just as well. Nearly every day there was something. While I was at work, my dad would be at the nearby scrap yard looking for parts. We would guess if the car would start or not each morning. It became more efficient as my dad replaced bits and pieces under the bonnet. I did the Advanced Drivers Course with the local traffic police in that car. My tutor, a lovely police officer, used to mock my car, mostly in fun, and blame my driving, not the funny clutch, until he drove it himself. By the time I could afford something better, my dad had virtually rebuilt the engine. The bodywork, which was half metal, or more correctly, half rust, half plaster, or whatever they fill holes with, was in a sorry state. Slam the door and a bit more would drop off. It was up for sale. My neighbour thought that was hilarious and suggested I scrap it, but no, I needed some money for it. The first person to see it, bought it, and for my asking price of £100. He didn’t actually want the car, he was after the ‘cherished number plate’, which meant nothing to me but everything to him. That was the one and only time I made money on a car. HEN 63F.

A1, that was Blackpool FC on Saturday against Swansea. Another win, another three points, first class.  I was so happy to have my husband back at the stadium for the first time since November, though I’m grateful to the family members who have taken his place and kept me company at home matches during his absence.

My poem, nothing to do with A1, and not even a poem, just thoughts.

Carrying whatever they can,
Walking for miles,
Someone’s child,
Hungry, tired, scared.

Someone’s parent,
Anxious for family, friends.
Someone’s partner,
Sick with worry.

No sleep, no rest, just tears and fears.
War-torn people, devastated lives.
Broken burning buildings,
Homes, hospitals, schools.

Soldiers fighting for Ukraine,
Their lives, their families,
Their all.
Someone, something,
Put a stop to Putin.
Russians rebel,
End this now.


Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

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Cars - Driving Is Fun

My father loved his cars and nursed his Jaguars like they were babies. He polished them inside and out and tweaked engines until they sounded perfect to him. Before joining the Licensed Trade, he was an engineer for many years and still liked to involve himself in machinery. Wherever we lived, he always had a meticulous work-shop set up. I was very much a ‘daddy’s girl’. Wherever he was, I was, as much as possible.  That would usually be down the pub cellar, in the garage, work-shop or in the car park. I inherited his fondness for cars.

I had a cherry-red Tri-Ang convertible, my favourite colour at the time. I copied my dad. I polished the bonnet until it gleamed and tapped the tyres. My car didn’t have the twiddly, interlocking bits that make an engine and it didn’t need the smelly liquid that Dad poured down a funnel into something under his car bonnet. I could get it going very fast round the car park and I didn’t scuff my shoes that much, despite what my mum said. I had that little red car until I grew out of it.

Dad bought me my first real car when I was seventeen. It was an Austin A40. His choice, not mine. I would have gone for an emerald green convertible Ford Capri. Anyway, his choice for me was perfect and for sensible reasons like low mileage, and easy to manage. He taught me basic car care, checking oil, coolant, windscreen washer levels and tyre pressures.  Some things were learnt through necessity, like how to remove, dry and replace spark plugs, how to liberally spray WD40 or similar and how to use jump leads. Driving was fun.

I had my A40 for about five years and it served me well. I only parted with it when my grandfather gave up driving and wanted me to have his nearly new, very low mileage Hillman Hunter. I think he’d only used it to take money from his pub to the bank and take my grandmother to Chorley Market once a fortnight. It was a lovely car and I kept it for a long time.  It was the last of my decent cars for ages. 

One of my cars was at least fifty shades of green, which didn’t matter because if I wanted to cover up another blemish, any green would do. It only cost me £50, which was probably as much as I could afford at that time. I was driving along Garstang Road having turned off the A6 one night, yes,it’s always night time when something goes wrong, when the bonnet flew up. It scared me to death. The catch had broken off. I limped it home at no more than ten miles an hour, the bonnet down, but threatening to fly up again. By the time I sold that particular car, Dad had more or less replaced everything in the engine, piece by piece as each breakdown related to something else. I sold it for £50, the same as I’d paid for it. The person buying it wanted the number plate.

Another car went ‘bang’ at the top of Crossley’s Bridge and rattled all the way down the other side, freewheeling.  Reconditioned engine required.

A car that I really liked, but turned out to be a very bad buy, used a great deal of oil and the repair would be more than the car was worth. At that time, I really wasn’t any good at buying a car on my own.

I’ve had decent cars again since those lean times. I fell in love with the Nissan Micra when it first came out in the early 1980s and currently, I’m on my fourth. I haven’t owned anything else for thirty-odd years. Recently I handed over the keys to my sister who is more than happy to use it for me. I don’t like to drive unless I have to these days.

The next car I buy, sometime quite soon, will be a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe and other things similar for my grandchildren to play with in our garden. It feels like I’ve come full circle. I’ll watch out for them scuffing their shoes.

 

High time for one of my own poems.

 

 

      My Cars

My first car, Austin A40,

Not so trendy at seventeen,

But solid and reliable.

I wasn’t sure but Dad was keen.
 

I would completely trust his choice

To buy a decent car for me.

Clean and tidy, and low mileage,

The A40 just had to be. 

Smart saloon, the Hillman Hunter,

Grandad’s car, his pride and joy.

Well looked after, fully serviced,

Now mine to care for and enjoy. 

Pink Floyd in my Humber Sceptre,

M6 motorway late at night,

Flying solo in the fast lane,

A ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ delight. 

Let’s salute the Vauxhall Viva.

A quiet ride and cheap to run

When the bonnet’s been mended and

Work for the MOT’s been done. 

Huge mistake, my Austin Maxi,

It had stereo and looked cool.

I always had the jump leads out

And it supped as much oil as fuel. 

How I love my Datsun Violet!

It never, ever failed to start.

Trav’ling every day to Preston

‘Til its bodywork fell apart. 

I’m on my fourth Nissan Micra,

I’ve run them for thirty-plus years.

I keep them until the scrap yard

Means Journey’s End – and lots of tears.

 

Pamela Winning 2018

 

 

 

 

 

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