The Outside Of Everything

Chapter 38
The Life of the Automobile

Having a bit of time on my hands of late I’ve been sorting out some of my old books. I suppose books are a bit like sea shells, you know when you put one against your ear, in a sense that when you look at the cover and read the blurb on the back and it all comes back to you. One book I was delighted to reacquaint myself with was Ilya Ehrenburg’s The Life of the Automobile. I’m not sure how well known this book is. But it was a revelation when I first came across it. First published around 1930 in Russia, it is a chronicle of its time, and the author tells the story of the motor car, its rise and rise, its effects on the world, on workers, on the economy, and so on. My edition is a Serpents Tail one published in 1999, but I think it was first published in the UK in the mid-‘80s by Pluto Press, the fine left book publishers, who were at one time overseen by Michael Kidron, the father of the great producer Adam who was behind the controls of many of our favourite records. Small world.

Reading it again the title specifically makes me think of Our Friend Stan who sadly is no longer with us. Stan was an old rogue who had the lock up next door but one to ours. Outwardly respectable, he could be a real rascal. And one of his secrets was an old car he kept lovingly shut away in another nearby lock up. He only ever let on about this to a few people. So it came as something of a surprise to his long suffering missus when Stan had left us and she was sorting through his things, and a few clues had led her to the second lock up and its secret inhabitant. After all those years of marriage she really had no idea she was sharing her affections with a light blue Morris Minor Traveller of a 1962 vintage. It was quite a shock for the old dear. I think she was a little bit hurt too. Lack of trust, and all that, but we all need our secrets. Back at the house, after the funeral, she came up to us, ostensibly to offer us something from a plate of sandwiches, and said in a wounded tone that she bet we knew about the old car.

Oh we knew alright. We knew all about Our Friend Stan’s secret passion, even if we knew very little about cars. To this day I have never driven a car. I don’t think any of us actually ever even owned a car. A scooter, yes. But modern cars? Oh no. They were ugly. We knew about older cars though. When I was about knee high it was a proud boast of my ma’s that I could recite pretty much the whole of the Ladybird book of cars. So we could to a certain extent understand Our Friend Stan’s soft spot for his Traveller. Lovely old things they were. The wooden frames. Oak or whatever. On the rare occasions I see one nowadays I have a tear in my eye as I think of the old shell Our Friend Stan secretively but lovingly restored.

The highlight of Our Friend Stan’s year was the London to Brighton vintage car rally. The first Sunday in November was like a religious ritual for our friend and near neighbour. The night before he could never sleep, so come morning he would be up with the lark to prepare all his gear. The hipflask, the thermos, the sandwiches, the golf umbrella, the binoculars, the notebook, the camera, and so on, before setting out. He’d drive over Croydon way and watch the earliest of the old cars as they wended their way down to Brighton. He loved seeing the occupants of the cars, all done up in their sheepskins and furs, in all likelihood half frozen, but completely into the spirit of the occasion, waving at the spectators lined along the route. Stan’d religiously tick off the runners and riders in his souvenir programme, and then head on down to Brighton itself for a spot of lunch and a closer inspection of the vintage cars. He always wangled his way inside the VIP enclosure somehow. Not because he was into rubbing shoulders with the swells. No, he simply wanted to hear first hand the stories of the time, trouble and money spent on restoring these magnificent machines.

So shortly after he’d retired Our Friend Stan was out on a coach trip with his missus and friends from a social club. They were out in the Kent countryside somewhere. They’d stopped for a bite of lunch and wine tasting, can you believe? Stan was bored stiff, so had sauntered off to look round the farm. Being the nosey old dog he was, he’d been poking around inside some old unloved barns and had stumbled across an equally unloved old Morris Traveller. It was in a right old state. And so was Stan by the time he’d let his imagination run riot. He was late back for the coach, and got hell from the missus. But he was oblivious to being given the cold shoulder. His mind was on other things. Namely could he get in contact with people on the farm, put in a bid for the wreck of a car, and get it done up all on the quiet like?

Well needless to say, after plenty of heartache and soul searching, and a fair old bit of expense, Stan got the car to his other lock up, and a beautiful relationship developed as the magnificent machine was pretty much rebuilt. Oh, it wasn’t just Stan who helped. His gang of old contemptibles made it their lives’ mission to restore the Traveller, and they all did it on the sly. Without their other halves knowing. By the time we got to know Stan, the Traveller was looking half decent. And what was preoccupying Stan principally was the provenance if you like. I always suspected this had something to do with the film, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, which had such a stellar cast, with everyone from Rex Harrison to Jeanne Moreau to Alain Delon to Joyce Grenfell to Lance Percival in it. It told the story of, well, the life of an automobile, and all the scrapes it had been caught up in. What Our Friend Stan loved more than anything was to sit around with us or anyone else who happened to be on hand, taking a bit of a breather from waxing his beloved Morris Traveller, and we’d make up stories of situations Stan’s true love had been through in its chequered past lives. Good fun. And considerably more entertaining than the truth. For, our dear fellow Traveller had been in the one family since the early-‘60s, much loved at first before ending up abandoned in the decaying barn, as the attention of another generation switched to wines and tourists’ teas.

As our own lives moved on, and we drifted away from lock ups and tall stories, we didn’t really give much thought to Stan and his fellow Traveller. So it was a lovely surprise to learn that the magnificent machine was still out there, and that ironically it had outlived our old friend. What was to become of it though? We hardly dare ask. But we spent the rest of the day, once we’d said our farewells, imagining what might happen next. Of course in a perfect world we would have done the decent thing, which of course would be to hijack the car from wherever it was then stored. Load it up with goodies. Drive down to Brighton. Have a good meal. Tootle along to Beachy Head. Set fire to the dear old Traveller. And push her over the cliff edge, with our blessings and a benediction. But then none of us knew how to drive. And we wouldn’t want to involve outsiders. So it was a bit of a non-starter as schemes went. Bit pathetic really. And anyway Our Friend Stan’s old lady was going to sell the old machine off and donate the money to the local hospice that was so good to our old friend towards the end.