I read Dorothy C. Maguire's Nostalgia article about her first car (Gazette, July 5, 'Driving test nerves - but i still passed!').
I first learned to drive during World War Two in my father’s 1934 Standard Ten de lux which had a ’free wheel’.
In free wheel mode when you took your foot of the accelerator the clutch automatically ‘de-clutched’ and the car ran free. It could be lethal.
You did not need to take a test but at the end of the war there was a deadline to apply, which I missed.
This meant I had to take a test in Manchester and had by that time acquired some bad habits but passed with these words from the examiner: “I will give you the benefit of the doubt.”
In 1950 I got a job in Cornwall and needed a car. I purchased a 1938 Two Door Ford Ten with a soft top, ENE 295, for £300 and it also was basic!
It took nine hours and a pint of oil to drive from Cornwall to Manchester. I sold it two years later for £200.
Donald A Wroe
Barnside
Bouth
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