Ever since I was aged three until I became very ill over three years ago I have had what some consider a paradoxical interest in cars. When I was a child my father used to bring home pamphlets of cars he thought of buying. He used to lay them out on the floor and I as a toddler used to stamp on them ritually chanting “Big car, little car, big car, little car”.
My own first car was a wonderful Armstong Siddeley Sapphire with a semi-automatic pre-selector gearbox which I bought for £100. Since then I have owned a number of old Bentleys, the first of which had no passenger seat so my passengers had to either sit in the back or risk burning themselves in the front. Now I am happy to be driven and my adolescent passion for cars has abated, thank God.