When we learned to drive…
Do you remember tearing up your L-plates because you’d passed, or the disappointment of failing your driving test? Yours writer Marion Clarke reverses down memory lane for your views…
It took several attempts and three patient instructors before I finally passed my driving test. And, luckily for me, that was before they introduced the extra hurdle of a written exam as well as reversing around a corner and executing a perfect three-point turn without hitting the kerb!
That tricky manoeuvre was
Mrs S Rose’s downfall: “All was going well until I drove into a quiet road and was asked to do a threepoint turn. I got flustered and it slowly became an eight-point turn, by which time a queue of cars had formed as their drivers waited patiently for me to stop zig-zagging wildly back and forth. I finally managed to drive away, very red-faced, knowing I had failed.”
Happily, Mrs Rose passed on her second attempt, but it took Mooneen Truckle four goes before she could throw away her L-plates: “My youngest daughter was still a toddler and I used to have to take her with me on my lessons. There were no seatbelts in those days and she used to sit on the back seat cuddling her teddy, as good as gold. More often than not, she landed on the floor when we did an emergency stop but she just picked herself up and climbed back on to the seat.”
When Anne Dunford’s husband taught her to drive, the whole family piled into the car: “Children in the back, hubby in the passenger seat and
‘With a flurry of gravel and spinning wheels we’d get away waving to neighbours’
myself behind the wheel. We lived down a lane and the only way was up – a hill start! Each time we nearly got away when, whoops, the engine stalled. After a few more tries, he would let out a sigh that made me more nervous than ever. At last, with a great flurry of gravel and spinning wheels we’d get away, waving to the neighbours who had been waiting for ages to see us go by.” Anne finally got the hang of driving when her friend took over as instructor – proving once again that your husband teaching you to drive is not a good idea.
After one too many arguments, Olive Parry’s husband paid for her to have seven proper lessons: “At £1 a lesson, would you believe? I passed first time and in 42 years never had an accident.”
At the other end of the scale, Rosemary Leedham was a slow learner: “I had about 100 lessons before I passed my test. I found it difficult to