By the 1930s Dad's building business had reached a stage when he found his jobs were getting too far-flung to be supervised efficiently with a cycle as his only form of transport, and he found himself spending more time travelling than working. At the same time, business people everywhere were getting rid of their horses and going in for vans and cars; so he put out feelers among his business acquaintances.

Soon, someone told him of a firm that had a second-hand 'Swift' for sale - a special custom-made saloon that had been the property of the managing director of Swift's; it was the first model they had ever made with a chromium plated radiator; (until then these had been nickel-plated or plain polished brass). This car was years ahead of its time, having a central lubrication system that obviated the need for grease nipples; there was also a sunshine roof, solenoid-operated dipping headlights, and many other innovations. These included pneumatic cushions inside the leather upholstery, which proved unsuitable for a builder who slung nails about all over the place, and usually had plenty in his pockets.

The car had a gate-change, four-speed gear-box, for the fourteen-horsepower (RAC rating) engine. As with most cars then, it was necessary to double-de-clutch when changing gears up or down (especially down), because, unless engine and gears were turning at the same speed, it was impossible to engage them; so they would emit tortured noises if one tried when they were out of synch; (and our father was the least mechanically minded man I ever knew). The coach work was all beaten from thick aluminium, the chassis as strong as that of a modern truck; this vehicle could still probably have been on the road today, had the manufacturer not gone bankrupt soon after we purchased it, so that spares became no longer available.

Well, the salesman brought this maroon-coloured car round, and parked it in front of the shop one evening, soon after Father had finished his tea. The family all walked round it, peered in the windows, and admired the shiny chrome and coach work. Then Dad came out, got in beside the driver, and they disappeared up Church Hill Road. This was to be his first and only driving lesson, and it did not last for very much more than half an hour. They came back and parked the car outside the shop again. Dad announced that he thought he had 'got the hang of it,' and proceeded to strike a bargain with the vendor. Knowing Father, I bet it was a hard one; and its successful conclusion was to be the start of a time of adventure for us all.

As soon as the salesman left and we were back inside the house, Dad announced out of the blue that we would start out early the next morning for our first holiday by the seaside, leaving Reg in charge while we were away. We had never had more than one day's holiday before, and great was the excitement. Our mother was aghast, though, and began scrapping around, trying to find enough clean clothes and so on, to take with us at such short notice. I think we would have all been apprehensive, had we known what our father was letting us in for.

'I've decided we'll go to Swanage, down in the West Country; there won't be any need for us to book up anywhere at this time of the year; there's sure to be plenty of room,' said Father, as we finished our breakfast at about seven o'clock the following morning. Then we 'wasted' half an hour, with him anxious to be off, while Mother tried to cram all we needed into our inadequate cases, and then to find room for them and the three kids in the car. Everything had to go in the back, since our car did not have a boot. At long last we were all five safely stowed, and Dad took possession of the steering wheel. After five minutes of noisy struggling to do things in the right order, he had to suffer the indignity of having Walter Snelling (whom he despised) from next door but one, come out and remind him of how to organise a start.

Eventually, we moved off, albeit in a series of leaps and bounds - more like a kangaroo than the swift after which the car had been named, leaving my older brother in charge of the firm. Thus we set out on our memorable journey. Only a few of the incidents from that first holiday still stand out in my mind from those far-off days, but chaos reigned over it from beginning to end. In the course of a long series of narrow squeaks, there occurred our first accident; it was in Basingstoke, when we had an argument with a bus. We had been following it through the town, when, due to it slowing down, Dad was forced to conclude that he would have to change gear. After a few noisy but unsuccessful efforts, he looked down to make sure he was trying to get the gear-lever into the right slot; that was when the bus driver decided to stop, while our car kept on going; our squeals only marginally preceded the bump.

We backed off after another struggle with the gears; the car was virtually unmarked - it had large strong spring-holders, an extension of the chassis, sticking out the front; but the back of the bus was a sorry sight. Dad slid open his window, and a local man came over:
'You've 'ad it now mate! This 'ere bus company pretty well runs this bloody town!' he told us. The bus driver and his conductor appeared then, and after some swearing at Dad's driving, they took his name, address, and car registration number (it was WK 9300). Fortunately no-one had been hurt, and the driver did not insist on reporting the accident to the police.

We moved off once more. Our mother could not have been called a calm sort of person, even by her best friends; now we proceeded with her in a state bordering on hysteria. Every time another vehicle got within a stone's throw of us she'd call out 'Mind that one Fred!' and before long, Dad's caution after the accident was replaced by fury at her interfering. The fact that she had proved right in her earlier warnings, only made him the more frustrated; but he had to restrain himself, and only mutter under his breath.

We had not travelled many miles from Basingstoke, when a man driving a small car tried to overtake us. Now once Father got into top gear, he seemed to be able to manage all right, and he had certainly got the hang of using the accelerator; so when he thought he was about to be overtaken, he pressed it down hard on the floor. Over the next mile or so, the chap behind made several attempts at overtaking, but finally gave up, and had to be content with gesturing at us by waving out his window. I told Dad that the man was trying to tell us something, but he only swore under his breath and pressed doggedly on. Suddenly, Mum screamed that she could smell burning and, sure enough, clouds of black smoke began to obscure the bête noir that was frustrating our father from behind.

Beaten at last, father began to draw in to the side, again to park at a bus stop, behind a bus, but not hitting it this time. We had hardly come to a halt before the bus conductor leapt out with a fire extinguisher in his hands and, as we got out of the potential fire-bomb, he began squirting his appliance at the flames that were showing under the back. The fire appeared to be out by the time he had emptied it and he told us that we'd had a narrow escape as the flames had reached the petrol tank; he was really brave to have tackled them, I suppose. Anyway he told us not to move off until everything had cooled off and went back to his job.

The trouble had been caused by Father having forgotten to release the hand brake after hitting the bus in Basingstoke; the brake drums had become red-hot and set fire to the oil in the automatic lubricating system. We had undoubtedly been lucky; it was thousands to one against having someone there handy with an extinguisher just when we needed him, and the car could well have gone up in flames, and even exploded, before we got out, had he not been so quick.

The fire didn't seem to have impaired the car's performance and soon we moved off again, with Mum having hysterics every time we went at any speed. All went fairly well until we reached those Dorset hills.

Father had not acquired the knack of changing into a lower gear while on the move (in fact he never did). We managed to struggle over the first two or three hills in top gear, but then came one that was just a bit too steep for us and, before we topped the crest, he realised he would have to change down. There was a short period when the screaming of tortured metal rent the air, before we slowed to a standstill and he snatched the hand break on. But it did not work; the fire must have put paid to the linings and we began to accelerate backwards down the hill.

If our brakes were burnt out, so was our mother, and her screams terrified us all worse than our predicament, as we gathered speed. It wasn't long before Dad lost control (in fact he was never to learn how to steer when in reverse), and we shot backwards on to the wrong side of the road and through a hedge at about twenty miles an hour, coming to rest in a field, still upright, but stuck fast.

Again, we were lucky; apart from a few scratches on the paint-work, the car appeared to be undamaged; luckier still a passing lorry driver spotted our situation and stopped to help. He produced a long tow-rope, fixed it on to our projecting chassis, and pulled us out onto the road.

We moved off once more, Mother, with eyes closed now, and lips moving in silent prayer. Since we were now aware there was no hand brake, and that the foot brake only worked on the front wheels, for the rest of the journey we stopped at the bottom of each hill, and changed into bottom gear to crawl snail-like to the top. We were accompanied by invective from the other road users, who were forced to share our speed on those winding Dorset roads. There are many hills in Dorset, and before long our radiator was boiling; this entailed long waits while it cooled, and visits to houses for water. All bad things have to end sometime though, and late, but more or less whole, we eventually pulled into Swanage and made for the sea front, where Dad proposed parking, while we all were to go off to look for accommodation.

Mother had moved into the back after our last incident and I was sitting in the front when we pulled into the kerb. Father told me to get out and direct him back safely; I opened the door and stepped down, but before I could shut it again, he started to move backwards. Unfortunately, there happened to be a lamp-post alongside us and I was crushed between that and our front-hinged car door. Luckily the leather retaining strap broke and, although I collapsed on the pavement, it transpired that no bones were broken; I was only winded and bruised. I recovered in time to hear the passers-by who had picked me up remonstrating with Dad, and Mum muttering something about 'never again!'.

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First-Person Stories Archive

Len (Snowie) Baynes

08.03.07 Front Page

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