Family days out all crammed in sidecar
TOM UTLEY’S reminiscences about seven people cramming into a Fiat 500 (Mail) reminded me of the tales my father tells of his family of six going on outings using a motorbike and sidecar. This photo was taken by my uncle on a day trip in 1954 to Old Sarum, the Iron Age hill fort in Wiltshire. The boy at the front having a cuppa is my father. That trip was particularly memorable: the Panther motorbike, a British classic, kicked when my grandad started it up and jolted him, breaking his foot. He had to drive all the way home in tremendous pain. Grandad went to work every day at the U.S. Air Force base at Bushy Park, Richmond-upon-Thames, on the motorbike. The family used the twin adult sidecar for shopping, outings, picnics and, astonishingly, touring holidays in Wales. The pole on the back covered with pennants showed all the places they’d been. As my dad says, it was all they had. The logistics of six people using this mode of transport are beyond me. I can only assume ropes were deployed at the rear and the family drew straws as to who would be wearing roller skates and holding on for dear life!
NATALIE GOSLING, Rawcliffe, E. Yorks. I WAS reminded of my own childhood by Tom Utley’s column about car journeys. My dad never learnt to drive so it was very exciting when my uncle, who had an estate car, took us, a family of four, together with his family of five to the seaside for the day. Three in the front, three in the back and three little ones in the boot with all the bags of food and drinks for a picnic on the beach. The games we played as we drove along included I Spy and a type of cricket using the names of pubs to score. Oh, the excitement of being saluted by the RAC motorbike patrolmen because my uncle had a metal badge showing he was a member. We worried in case the car wouldn’t get up a hill and bounced up and down in the back whether it helped or not. On the journey back we had a sing-song, belting out Unchained Melody and Show Me The Way To Go Home at the tops of our voices. We stopped off for a drink at a country pub and picked wildflowers. No seatbelts, no drink-driving laws and no motorways. There was the odd traffic jam, but no one seemed to mind. Despite the fact we were all crammed in the car, it was good humoured — or perhaps that’s just how I remember it. Happy days for my sister Pauline and me, and our cousins Sheila, Lesley and Carole.