Behind the wheel

“Regarding the correspondence about the Austin 7,” comments a regular reader, “the car looks like a sports version of the predecessor to my father’s Baby Austin from 1934. My father bought it early in the 1940s from my uncle John Leask who had a grocer’s shop in Dundee’s Albert Street.

“Uncle John had himself bought the car second or third hand from a commercial traveller who used to pass his old cars on to my uncle.

“I learned to drive on it, unbeknown to my father. Few private cars were allowed on the road after the first few months of the Second World War, mainly because of the petrol shortage. Every gallon of petrol came by sea at great cost in sailors’ lives and ships and it was needed for the armed forces and essential services.

“Our car was garaged at Pellow’s printworks in Lintrathen Gardens and, when things were quiet in the shop in the holidays, I – as temporary errand boy – was sent by my father to polish the car. He gave me the keys and told me to push the car onto the driveway, work on it there and push it back in again.

“Unsupervised, I drove it out and back and forth along the long driveway before settling down to work. I was 10 years old at the time. Dad never knew about my little ploy, but expressed surprise when I drove the car so efficiently during my first lesson with him at the age of 16!”