Second-hand Mini did the job

I’ve always loved cars – the driving of, not the tinkering with. More than half a century has passed since I got my licence so I know how to drive, but the precise detail of what goes on under the bonnet remains something of a mystery.

My first wheeled transport was a hand-built cart made from a wooden crate with pram wheels and, without any brakes, it took its toll on the soles of my shoes as I tried to stop.

The first time I got behind the wheel was on my father’s lap on a hard-packed sandy beach in Northern Ireland when we hit 50mph in his 1935 Vauxhall Big Six – quite an achievement for its 20hp engine.

In my late teens I got my hands on my own first car, a light blue Mini, handed down to me by my mother.

MYJ 583 was basic, with a starting button on the floor, sliding windows and a string to open the doors.

But it served me well. I was working as the only reporter on the Forfar Dispatch and it took me to all my newsy assignments, including chasing fire engines when the local retained crew were called out. My car was the same as one of the firemen’s.

I heard later he was asked why he was always late and had to drive behind the fire engine to try to catch it.

I had one scary moment in it late at night on a quiet back road when I skidded on a patch of ice and spun onto a grassy bank, just before a snowplough came round the same bend. A few seconds later and the Mini would have been no more.

I remember trying to make it look more racy with wheel spacers and go-faster stripes but it made no difference to the snail’s pace performance.

After I moved to Hertfordshire for work, I regularly made the trip back home, but over time that proved too much for the car.

On its last memorable journey it burned almost as much oil as petrol, with fumes coming up through the gap in the floor beside the gear lever so I had to open the rear window flap to let out the blue smoke.

Then the gearbox started to expire, and by the time I reached my parents’ home, I was left with only two gears. Unfortunately, they were just first and second.

I’ll never know what happened to the car.

According to the DVLA, they have no record of the registration so it must be rusting in peace in that big workshop in the sky.

TREASURED CAR: Alan with the Mini handed down by his mother.