My usually calm dad started smoking again while teaching me to drive. He hadn’t had a cigarette in 20 years, but I crashed so many gears attempting to double de-clutch, that he hissed “Stop at the tobacconists!” and grabbed a packet of Capstan Full Strength. I passed my test three months after my 17th birthday.
Today’s young motorists may never know the joy of balancing the clutch, dropping the revs and sliding down through the gears. Electric cars don’t have a clutch and already a third more young learners are choosing automatic over manual, according to the President of the AA.
Future drivers will learn how to conserve their battery and drive with one pedal. It all sounds about as skilful and thrilling as trundling a golf cart round the greens.
I don’t want a car that does everything for me. Driving should be a skill and a challenge. And in the old days, the first challenge was whether the car would start.
My early one had a starter handle – not because I’m 100 years old but I was a member of the Vintage Sports Car Club and owned an open-top 1932 Riley Gamecock with running boards, which Al Capone would have envied.
Driving my friend Lyndy through Richmond Park, we imagined passing strollers were waving at the sight of two attractive girls in a fabulous vintage car. But when we stopped, smoke engulfed us. The brakes were on fire! I hadn’t fully released the ratcheted handbrake.
My RAF pilot/navigator father instilled a love of maps in his four daughters; quizzing every visitor on the roads they had taken, drawing a shorter route for their return. Even now, punching a postcode into a satnav just doesn’t cut it. Before any long journey, maps are invariably strewn across the table while I commit the direction of travel to heart.
I loved my red Morgan 4/4. Nought to 60 in five seconds. It had an ash frame – a hysterectomy over every bump – and a bonnet so long you had to drive into the middle of the road to see what was coming. I drove some friends to a wedding in Birmingham, with the hood down. Their heads were above the windscreen. They never spoke to me directly again.
Some cars had names. My Triumph Herald Convertible was called, inevitably, The Ark – ‘Ark the ‘Erald – and when my waters broke, I nearly gave birth in Blodwen, my Morris Minor.
Cars used to have a distinct look and personality – from the eternally fashionable Mini to the unique silhouette of the Jaguar E Type. But now…. Can you tell a Hyundai from a Qashqai? Nobody really loves their car anymore – because they all look and sound the same.
So apart from the obvious environmental benefits, what are the advantages of modern driving? Well, you argue with the satnav instead of your other half; you’ll probably reach your destination without having to get out to push; you’re warm; it’s quiet – and no danger of the clutch going.
The disadvantages? Your car will simply be a characterless way of getting from A to B.
But mine won’t. I’m keeping my glovebox full of maps and my manual gearbox – turning down the radio, so I can hear and time the perfect double de-clutch. And, as Frances McDormand said in the drifter movie, Nomadland, “I’ll see you down the road”. You’ll hear me coming.
Conversations from a Long Marriage at Christmas, by Jan Etherington, is available on BBC Sounds
