FROM FORD ANGLIA TO FORD SIERRA, 1973-MID 1990s... (MY FIRST 7 CARS...)

 From Ford Anglia To Ford Sierra

(...my first seven cars…)

OK, SO THIS WAS PROBABLY MT FIRST CAR...

My Ford Anglia became what amounted to a taxi for ferrying schoolboy footballers and cricketers to matches, sometimes seven or eight cramming inside for the short journeys to playing fields. My subsequent cars suffered in the same way until I moved to work for the Birmingham Museums. The Anglia though did a really great job.

QUITE PROUD...

It was involved in an accident in London too, en route to the old Arsenal ground at Highbury in January 1974, where out of form 2nd Division team Aston Villa were playing in an FA Cup-tie against the Gunners from Division 1. Arsenal’s goalkeeper was future TV pundit and trained PE teacher Bob Wilson, whilst Villa’s number 9 was Irish maths teacher Sammy Morgan, who, er, played without wearing his spectacles…

Villa drew 1-1 but Wilson publicly criticised and vilified Morgan for his ‘physicality’ which was cynically reported in the Birmingham press afterwards. Wilson had encouraged referee Clive Thomas to book Morgan for one challenge on him then complained again about the Villa man’s next challenge which resulted in the centre-forward being dismissed with some 25 minutes remaining. Morgan had headed Villa in front but Ray Kennedy finally equalised against the ten men but Villa held out for a draw.   

MORGAN CELEBRATES AT HIGHBURY...

KENNEDY EQUALISES...

Villa won the replay 2-0 and Morgan scored again, after Wilson was harassed into a poor clearance by Pat McMahon and Alun Evans had crossed for Morgan to head in. Evans scored the second goal for Villa…

ADVERSARIES BACK AT VILLA PARK...

However, back to the journey beyond the motorway, for I was heading uphill towards London in a queue travelling at about 30mph. One vehicle though stopped rather suddenly ahead and typically other vehicles shunted into each other. I was lucky enough to be able to stop and not hit the rear fender of the car in front of me but the van behind me failed to brake quickly enough and caught my rear bumper slightly.

There were Villa fans in the van and they had been drinking bottles of beer, so that both occupants and beer bottles ended up sprawled onto the road. I was able to drive on immediately and reach Highbury but I have no idea how long other folks took to note down the insurance particulars of other drivers…

When I first parked my Anglia outside my dad’s house in Shard End and because the street lights went out before midnight, drivers were expected to park their cars on the left side of the road, facing the correct way of course and use a parking light. This I did for a while… The light clipped over the driver’s window, which was then wound up to hold the light in place. The wire was plugged into the cigarette lighter and of course worked off the car’s battery. 

TYPICAL PARKING LIGHT...

My Anglia suffered a sad demise however, for my future wife Jenny, during an interlude in our relationship, bought herself a white Mini, FOH 215 L, in which she was taught to drive, I think by her brother Roly and brothers-in-law Peter and Barry, although I may be wrong about that.

Sadly she failed her driving test but apparently it was a tough incident which led to the failure. I believe she was driving along a dual carriageway towards the main Kingstanding roundabout in Birmingham and she was told to take the fifth exit, which meant having to move into the outside lane on approaching the major and busy circle. Panic… She made the manoeuvre into the outside lane successfully but on reaching the confusing junction she took the wrong exit… That roundabout with so many exits was always confusing, especially if you didn’t know it well. 

Hence, when my Anglia was in too poor a state for me to drive it any more and it lay on my future sister-in-law’s drive next to Jenny’s mum’s house, I began to use the Mini. Jenny was teaching at Slade Road Nursery, beneath Spaghetti Junction at the time and she had my Anglia towed to the school for the kids to play inside, after the two doors and dangerous items had been removed. Sadly, after a very short time, vandals got into the school grounds and set fire to the Anglia…

JUST ABOUT 50 YEARS AGO, BEFORE I TOOK MY DRIVING TEST...

One last incident involving my Anglia was when we went to someone’s party on the Walsall Road in Great Barr, in an upstairs room round the corner from the Clifton Bingo hall, once a cinema. I parked sensibly but left the party earlier than most and when I returned to my car, maybe less than 25 centimetres of space had been left by other drivers in front of and also behind the Anglia, meaning a real problem for me getting out.

I was really upset but spent a long time edging back and forth until finally, after many minutes, I was able to drive free… 

The Mini was OK to drive but we suffered a few painful times when the ‘points’ failed to ignite the car into action. In fact, driving back from Manchester City one night in August 1976 after Villa had been soundly beaten 2-0, we broke down on the M6 as darkness fell. I must have had my Villa scarf on the back shelf though because we had overtaken another vehicle and the driver had realised we were Villa fans, so when we pulled over to the hard-shoulder because the car was ailing, he pulled in too and after a quick look under the hood, he suggested towing us to the next service area, despite his wife’s protestations about being delayed getting home. He was a Villa supporter too…

It was terrifying being dragged at 40mph in the dark on a short rope and I have had a fear of being towed ever since that day. However, I can’t recall who got the car started again, maybe the guy himself or a mechanic still on duty at the services but I remember being told not to turn off the ignition until I reached home…

CONTACT POINTS...

My next car was bought from Firs teaching colleague Martin Cross, an ugly, brown Austin Allegro Estate, which I didn’t keep for long, eventually selling it to Jenny’s nephew Martin Ballinger.

MART & ME DOING A DISCO SET...

As a replacement I purchased a vomit green Datsun Cherry, KVP 551 P and that car caused some severe problems for me after my daughter Lucy had been born. Jenny had booked a holiday on a caravan site in Wales, at a small place called Burry Port in August 1982, a seaside venue I shall never forget…

POPPING TO MY PARENTS' HOUSE ON MY 31ST BIRTHDAY.
THE CHERRY IS ON THE ROAD...

The car was was packed with baby stuff and the usual holiday luggage, whilst my mother-in-law was also a passenger. Luckily we were travelling as a two-car convoy with Jenny’s sister, her husband and their two young daughters in their small yellow Fiat.

MY CHERRY & ME IN TAMWORTH...

I began to realise as we approached Worcester on the M5 that the temperature gauge had risen well above the ‘normal’ mark and had begun to creep into the overheating range. I left the motorway and flagged down my brother-in-law, who took on board Jenny, baby Lucy, plus mother-in-law and I took on board more luggage from his car as a makeweight and as a space creator. 

I was going to try to find a garage which might have been open on that Saturday morning and I was soon lucky to do so. The Asian guy there was at first unsure why there was a problem but eventually told me that I needed a new radiator. I was stuck and of course no mobile phones were around then… I then rang brother-in-law Roly from a call-box, for his daughter Beverley was going out at the time with the son of a breaker’s yard owner and within a short time, Roly had organised the delivery of a used Datsun Cherry radiator from the yard.

It was taken down to Worcester for me and I was very grateful of course, after spending the intervening time strolling around the rather uninteresting surroundings of that part of Worcester, whilst waiting. Incredibly though, the Asian mechanic’s son was instructed to clean out the replacement radiator with Fairy Liquid and the resolution would subsequently turn out to have been a grave mistake… The repair was eventually completed, I paid and then set out to complete the journey to what should have been a relaxing holiday.

I drove alone to Wales but gradually I became aware that the car was overheating slightly, something which worsened as I neared my destination but I made it to Burry Port, just about. However, a tyre had just punctured as I arrived there, frustratingly within a short distance of the Shoreline Caravan Park. I was hungry, tired, it was tea-time and I was forced to stop. As I got out of my car, I noticed that not only was there a stream of bubbles exiting my car and running away along the gutter but also that one tyre was almost flat.

I watched as the frothy mixture rolled into a drain and then I saw a guy approaching, amused by the bubbles… He was on his way home from work but offered to help me change my wheel as well as confirming that the caravan park was actually nearby. We exchanged the flat tyre for my spare…

I BROKE DOWN OUTSIDE BURRY PORT STATION...

I thanked the guy and drove slowly on, bubbling from beneath the hood, suddenly aware of the dismal, industrial small Welsh town of Burry Port around me. It was like I was on holiday in Smethwick or Sparkhill… Adjacent to the caravan site was a travellers’ camp, which really did it for me…

RATHER LOVELY...

On arrival Jenny was silent and looked totally unhappy with the venue, as was I but I thanked the gods that I hadn’t chosen it… She and the others then duly listened to my crazy tale of the journey there. 

NOT THE BEST BEACH ATTRACTION...

The caravan was actually rather smart but the site was like a holding cell and although the beach had been publicised with some delight by a brochure, its dunes and soft sand were instantly forgotten as we saw at one end of the beach, in all its glorious industry, a power station…

However, we were able to spend each beach day at Pembrey nearby which was a country park and was still sometimes used then by the military as a firing range… I have just found out to that in 1828, a French ship, La Jeune Emma was wrecked off Pembrey and a drowned 12 year old girl from the ship would be buried in Pembrey’s St Illtydes (ill tides?) She was Adeline Coquelin, a niece of Josephine de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s divorced wife. Wish I’d known at the time…  

LA JEUNE EMMA...

PEMBREY...

So, what of the ailing Datsun Cherry? 

Vinegar and caustic soda were used in attempts to flush out the remaining Fairy Liquid from the replacement radiator but the short drives to Pembrey were fine during the week and although no further incident occurred, we decided to leave Burry Port very early on the Saturday morning and try to avoid any traffic build-ups on the way home which could have precipitated more overheating. 

Lucy slept for the whole of the journey home, fortunately but the car finally overheated with its bubbling emissions as we approached a slip road towards Birmingham and so we simply sat there to allow the radiator to cool down, then topped it up with the cold water we had stored in the boot of the vehicle before leaving Wales. 

We reached home safely but the car was sold pretty quickly afterwards, in part exchange for a cream Austin Metro, POE 239 Y. Made me smile some years later though because when my Uncle Jack purchased a Metro and I exclaimed that he had an Austin Metro, Aunt Ivy retorted, “No, it’s a ROVER Metro…”

However, we soon discovered that some guy had been murdered in Burry Port on the Friday evening and after both we and my brother-in-law’s family had left the caravan site, it was locked down for the police to interview all the holidaymakers… We had escaped that horror but had returned home to deal with a damaged tyre and a bubble machine…

The Metro was not involved in any unusual action, surprisingly, except that its registration, POE was slightly amusing considering the vomit colour of the Datsun Cherry but when I sold it, the replacement vehicle, an Austin Montego, had a KAK registration (C 621 KAK…) Hence: vomit, poe and kak…

I saw the Metro again, being driven by its new owner some time afterwards near Acocks Green, which was a strange experience.

However, the Montego caused me such extreme hassle… 

The following information is taken from a letter I wrote to the owner of County Garages, a Mr Manton on the 23rd March 1990…

THE ONLY SURVIVING IMAGE OF THE MONTEGO, WITH MY DAUGHTER WENDY...

Bought on 31st January that year from County Garages’ Bucklands End Lane branch, now of course a site of private housing, within days it was clear that the price-card on the windscreen had been covering up several chips in the glass. Two oil leaks became evident within days and the upholstery on the rear-offside door was clearly detached. The engine soon began running hot too, bringing back memories of the bubbling Datsun Cherry and there was a whirring noise whenever I started the car, reminiscent of a loose fan belt.

Only one set of keys was presented to me and the hood wouldn’t open…

Whilst driving, there was a lack of control over the vehicle when in full-lock, nearside and the steering wheel seemed to want to take over control of the car for me… It was weird.

On the 27th February, the car was taken in by the main service department of County Garages, Chester Road, Castle Bromwich. The upholstery was fixed, the bonnet was unjammed, the oil leaks were stopped but the steering wheel problem wasn’t addressed and a second set of keys wasn’t provided, so that I was advised to get my own set cut…

Apparently there was nothing wrong with the fan-belt and because the cooler-fan was actually cutting in, the engine wasn’t running too hot… However, soon afterwards, the engine so nearly overheated.

Three oil leaks then soon began and subsequently a new gearbox was fitted into the car… Sadly, the service staff then lost my only set of keys, which had as its fob, a Cornish ‘pisky' bought for me by one of my daughters, also my only Krooklok key, plus my alarm control… 

I was subsequently provided with a new Krooklok, two new sets of keys and a promise to sort out the alarm problem which the garage had only actually installed on the day I bought the car.

However, the Montego continued to leak oil, there was still concern over the left lock of the steering wheel and the chips on the windscreen were still worrying, although I felt that it was not my responsibility to get the problem sorted. 

Sickened by the disappointing purchase and the shoddy service which followed, I was asking for the three month warranty to be extended for I was actually without the vehicle for several days at a time. I wrote that I had purchased my Austin Metro from a corner sales forecourt in Ward End and I had suffered no real problems with the car at all for a period of four years, yet County Garages was apparently a respected company and had sold me a lame duck…

On the 18th December 1990, I wrote a letter to Consumer Services, including in the envelope my previous letter to Mr Manton and a previous letter to the Consumer Services, dated 24th June, plus various bills. Neither original letter had been replied to…

I had employed a local father and son team of mechanics at Renown Car Sales, Ward End to complete some work on the Montego, whose bills I included copies of with my letter and also a bill from Autoglass, for something really strange had occurred on 9th August…

The rear-view mirror fell off… I obtained a new sticky-back fixing appliance, pressed it carefully against the windscreen but immediately the whole screen cracked before my eyes like a web of roads on an AA map…

The Autoglass fitter was shocked, if amused when he turned up to help by replacing the windscreen but of course the weakness had been there since I had purchased the car. Good job the screen didn’t break up whilst I was driving…

Oddly, County Garages had grudgingly offered to ‘strengthen’ the screen some weeks before but I had declined because really the whole thing had needed replacing. 

The house drive was partially covered by a huge oil stain, for I had been forced to top up the Montego several times, due to the oil warning light showing up regularly and of course, the car was still leaking drips of oil.

My son Jamie was born in the early hours of 25th November and surprisingly the Montego got us to Solihull Hospital but later that day clouds of oil were expelled from the exhaust pipe as I drove to the hospital to visit from home.

Blanket fog patches were thus causing hazards for following vehicles and so when I returned home again, I abandoned the Montego and my father ended up ferrying me to and from the hospital in his Escort.

Jenny was really annoyed that it was my dad’s car which collected her and her new son from the hospital and I was given some grief about that, despite the fact that it was really not my fault…

I soon dropped my car to Renown but whilst there it refused to start, for the battery had died. It was also suggested that oil wasn’t running into the engine properly and was thus being thrust out through the exhaust pipe…

I was advised to change the engine and sell the car…

I couldn’t afford to purchase a new engine, nor could I afford to have the existing one repaired in some way, so the car was towed away to Thornleigh Motor Salvage where it awaited a replacement engine.

I had been without a car for three weeks and I felt that I had strong cause for complaint. Copies of the letter I wrote were sent to the AA, Austin Leyland’s Head Office, the Consumer Service Department and also Terry Davis, my local MP at the time…

No help was forthcoming from any quarter however and I was basically saddled with the vehicle.

The Montego finally came back to me with a replacement engine and its misbehaviour traits remained dormant until its next, last and quite unbelievable episode occurred in 1994… 

It was 27th March 1994, my parents’ 51st wedding anniversary and also the date of Aston Villa’s League Cup Final tie against the more favoured Manchester United. My daughter Lucy, my father and I had tickets for the game. 

My parents arrived at my house in Hodge Hill around 11am and soon afterwards my other two children Wendy and Jamie waved us off wearing their Villa shirts and holding aloft a scarf. The weather was decent and I drove the M6, M42 and M40, seeing many Villa scarves flapping from coach and car windows. We exited the M40 for Marlow, ate lunch whilst travelling towards the M4 and arrived in Langley at Barbara and Mike’s flat at around 1.40pm.

WENDY & JAMIE WAVE US OFF...

I had met Mike at a couple of Aldershot matches and he had been a bachelor in his fifties until he met Barbara, also single, on a dating site. He lived near Wycombe and she lived in Blackpool but they hit it off and soon married. I was asked to be Mike’s ‘best man’ which was hilarious as I really didn’t know either of them. My speech was therefore unusual and a bit like a comedy sketch… 

MIKE & BARBARA'S WEDDING,
BUT MY JACKET IS NEARLY A WINTER COAT...

Anyway, we drank coffee with Mike and Barbara, I left my car at their house and he then drove us all the way to Orpington High Street but due to heavy traffic on the A40 we didn’t exit his car until around 4.05pm. We walked the rest of the way to Wembley, a stroll of 17 minutes or so.

There was an unpleasant atmosphere however and drunken Villa fans, one of them lying helpless on the ground, seemed to be everywhere. A man and a woman were arguing in the street and at the stadium, I was forced to hack my way through a non-orderly queue to purchase two match programmes at a poorly positioned kiosk. (I would leave them at Mike’s by mistake, later in the evening…) We looked for entrance J and there were crowds massed inside Wembley Stadium. 

Our seats were backless plastic shapes attached to a bench. A decent woman sat to my right and the bloke who had asked me for a programme voucher on the previous Monday when tickets were being sold was positioned directly in front of me. 

Nobody would sit down and the view from behind the goal was difficult to enjoy. The slope was shallow and we constantly had to stand up, before eventually scrambling onto our seats to watch the remainder of the game. My father somehow managed and it’s amazing what you can put up with when it’s something you don’t want to miss. At one point, he was resting one of his hands on the guy’s head in front of him, who simply allowed him to do so… Unbelievable.

United began calmly then missed a goalscoring chance, their ‘keeper Les Sealey tipped a Steve Staunton corner over his crossbar, before Dalian Atkinson scored, pleasing the Villa fans and at the interval the Villains led. The efforts of Shaun Teale, Andy Townsend, young Graham Fenton and the experienced Paul McGrath especially, kept Villa ahead until a flick by Dean Saunders added a second goal for Villa in the 75th minute. Mark Hughes pulled a goal back for United, Mark Bosnich made a fine save for Villa as the game became nail biting for the Lions, then in the final minute, Tony Daley struck a Manchester upright but Manchester’s Andrei Kanchelskis handled Atkinson’s rebound shot, allowing Saunders to rap in the subsequent penalty for a 3-1 Villa victory.

People went crazy, they hugged each other and sang. The League Cup was handed to ‘Big Fat Ron’s Claret and Blue Army’ (manager Ron Atkinson) and we fought our way out of the ground. Someone tried to yank Lucy’s scarf from her neck, someone else attempted to steal the two programmes from my grip but both of those vile Villa supporters failed… Mike awaited us, was delighted that Villa had won and we were back at his flat by 8.35pm. We were about to leave his home when his front door closed behind Barbara and him, and I had to climb a neighbour’s borrowed ladder and enter the flat like a burglar through an open window to get them back inside… 

VILLA SCORE & A YOUNG STEVE BRUCE LOOKS ON (RIGHT)...

We left there at around 9.30pm but rain showers plagued the journey home, where we arrived at 11.15pm after 111 gruesome miles. Lucy slept part of the way back and went to bed with unfinished homework. I sat alone and read until around 1am…

One odd thing about the match though: United’s Paul Ince, a player whose attitude I have never cared for, had made a point of applauding Villa’s fans. A surprise that…

My Montego had done its job but soon, its demise would come…

Lucy had dressed my old teddy bear in a miniature Villa kit for the journey to Wembley, one of those meant to hang inside a rear windscreen but it fitted the bear. Along with my old small cloth duck, Ted lay on the back shelf of the car. 

THE ONLY IMAGE I POSSESS OF MY TEDDY BEAR.
YOU CAN JUST MAKE OUT THE DUCK BELOW TED'S FACE...

I didn’t move them, which was my terrible error and one night a week later the fated Montego was stolen from my drive outside the house. I was astounded… The police called me a few days on and told me that a caller from Tamworth had reported an abandoned car near some garages opposite their house and of course it was my Montego…

A neighbour kindly drove me there to find the car which was filthy, as if it had been driven across muddy fields and of course the ignition had been gouged away. The AA came to my rescue but couldn’t get the car started and it was only after raising the bonnet that it became clear that a wire had been disconnected to disable the car, suggesting that the thieves would be returning to the vehicle sometime soon. 

We found the wire and the car was started, allowing me to drive it home…

However, deeply scratched upon the hood of the car were four huge letters: B, C, F & C, Birmingham City Football Club, obviously… The thieves had found the teddy bear in Villa colours and had presumably chucked it and the duck out of the car window and the letters were gouged to make a point…

My trainers had been nicked from the trunk of the car but the thieves had left my bird book alone, which was their mistake, for there was a £5 note still inside it when I checked. They had failed to find it.

Well, I guess they were Blues fans…

So, my Montego was written off, mainly due to the cost of the repairs to the bodywork and so, once again, I needed a new car… 

STEVE & ME PRESENTING A DISCO, LIKELY DANCING ALONG TO KOOL & THE GANG...

Steve Perry was the boyfriend of Michelle, my brother-in-law Roly’s other daughter and he worked at a car sales place in Moseley. I asked whether any decent cars were for sale there and soon he called me to say that the manager’s wife’s red Ford Sierra was for sale, with not many miles on the clock and so it was that I was able to acquire a Sierra, which was a decent vehicle to drive…

LUCY, MY DAD, WENDY, MUM, ME & JAMIE.
THE SIERRA & DAD'S ESCORT ARE NEARBY...

LOOKED SMART...

All in all, between 1973 and 1994 I had driven seven vehicles, three of which had endured exciting times in my possession…

MY NEXT CAR WOULD BE A VAUXHALL CORSA, BOUGHT FROM 452 MOTORS, CASTLE BROMWICH.
JAMIE LOOKS PLEASED, WHILST MY DAD PRACTISES YET ANOTHER WEIRD EXPRESSION FOR THE CAMERA...