CARS
ON DRIVING AND OTHER VEHICLES
As I write this during a era when fully electric vehicles are becoming not just the norm, but the expected choice focused through legislation. Looking back our cars may seem quite weird. But at the time they were our pride and joy. And sometimes burdens.
We are even looking beyond the benefits of non-carbon fuels to the environment concerns about the production of electric cars and their source materials.
I hope that you find the following of interest, spiced through the passing of time.
Before cars came onto the scene, there were horse, mule or ox drawn carts and wagons. We have a few photographs of such vehicles. Elsewhere I discuss the arrival of the 1820 Settlers amongst which were our Miller ancestors. They arrived by sea at Algoa Bay (Port E|lizabeth) and were transferred to the Albany district in large ox-drawn wagons by contracted local white settlers of mainly Dutch extract. These were to become known as Boers or Afrikaners.
My father used to tell me of an older relative of his, I think one of the Newmans, who had one of the 1st cars in East London. He was also one of the first in the city to get penalised. His noisy car had startled a horse drawn cab and the horse had thrown it over injuring the occupant.
No, this is NOT me. It is a picture from the 1950's from Google. When I found this it seemed to bring back early memories of travelling in the family car. A versatile toddler seat that could be hung almost anywhere (even on the outside of a car window during picnics). It is probably something like the one I used to travel in.
My father used to have an old black Ford. We have a photo of him and his new bride being towed through flood water somewhere. I have a vague memory of helping to crank it. With luck the car would jump into life. The ratchet on the handle meant that you were not suddenly trying to catch a wildly spinning handle, but I found it scary.
There is that black Ford ourside Buckingham Court on moving day.
My maternal grandfather, Da, (Wells), had a blue car with bubble headlights on the mudguards. While I recognise similar cars of that time, I cannot be sure what model it was. My memories as a child may well be altered by time, but I remember being driven around the block with me and my brother clinging to these headlights while sitting on the mudguards. Da had a leather prosthetic hand which he wore rarely (his hook being used for some tasks). I remember him taking me to the museum while driving with this leather hand. See WELLS, CUTHBERT ERNEST
He progressed to a Morris Oxford (so similar to those vehicles still found on the streets of places like India. And from there to a Austin Cambridge. Another Leyland product. Austin and Morris were effectively the same company – Austin producing the Cambridge and Morris the Oxford. (Smaller versions were available from which came the Morris Minor and Mini).
Something like this Morris Oxford - google image.
His next car was the larger Austin 1800. An odd looking car, but good to drive and spacious. That number indicates an engine choice of one. (This does not seem to have been common in the UK where a smaller, but otherwise similar car was available). That car passed to my mother and he got another newer one. I was to eventually inherit the later one – but I am jumping ahead.
I remember trips to places such as Durban. These were preceded by getting new tour maps from the AA. These were generally fold-out route maps – continuous lines with dots for villages, towns, cities and other important features. Such was the nature of trips then for fuel and comfort stops, (such as toast in Kokstad). Road-side picnics were a popular feature. I remember a trip to Port St Johns along a very rocky dust road. We had two blow-outs in quick succession. A passing car was flagged down and I, a mere teenager, was sent off with it with these strangers and two wheels all the way to distant Kokstad to get them repaired and to then find my way back.
I learnt to drive with professional lessons in one of those first VW Passats. This was supplemented by practising in the Austin 1800 around the as yet uncompleted new diesel engine yards. Firstly an oral test to get my learners at the traffic department followed later by a driving test. The teacher had everything well sorted. Simply align that part of the side window with that lamp post ….... The traffic department examiners usually – but not always – used the same routes. I passed. (The traffic officer who gave me my oral exam was lost during the floods in the late '60s).
My mother had inherited her grey Morris Minor from her mother and I drove it often. The back seat sort of folded flatter, but usually the two dogs were on the back seat itself. I would take them to the beach or into the veld for quite some distance such as below where we were to build our house in Beacon Bay on the Quinera River years later. Two sodden dogs and sand on the way back.
Something like this – google image.
That Morris Minor model is now a classic, Its indicator lights flicked up from the central side window/door post – well were supposed to. Otherwise all hand signals. Chromed bumpers. Very basic, but the very easy to drive and sort out.
Then I was off to the South African Navy for national service. 1970. Lots of trips in the back of old Bedford trucks. Basic training was at Gordons Bay on False Bay. This included digging a drainage ditch across a sports field. And then fetching sea sand to fill it as a soak-away. I was lifting the heavy tail flap over the bank of excavated soil as the truck was backed up with the seasand when I slipped in under the back wheels. At that very second the truck stalled. I was unhurt, but shaken. And for a brief moment I may have believed in a guardian angel.
While in the navy I also saw much of the country from trains. Hours in De Aar's desolate shunting yards. A few diesel engines. Very few electric then. And many steam. As I did not like the smoking in the carriages from fellow national servicemen so I would stand at the open windows in the gangway – and come back in with a blackened face from the blown back train smoke. More travel in the back of Bedfords at each end of those trips.
After a year in the navy I was off to varsity – UPE – the University of Port Elizabeth (since renamed Nelson Mandela University). I was given an advance 21st present of a blue VW Beetle. I used this to commute at weekends between East London and Port Elizabeth.
Much like mine. – google image. Flat windscreen. Tuhbular bumpers. Running boards.
We worked late into the night on some projects and sometimes saw the sun rise. One morning I had had just three hours of sleep, but was driving home. Two Klingelhoeffer brothers as passengers. On nearing the halfway point of Grahamstown, Thomas on my left awoke to find us staring down into an oncoming car both at about 60mph (the speedometer was in both kmph and mph). He grabbed the wheel to the left, then realising that was too much and towards an upright cliff, compensated by pushing it to the right. While I had not actually fallen asleep at the wheel, my reflexes were completely numbed. We did a long slide down the edge of an embankment on the side of the car and then in one role ended up in the bush below. Thomas appeared to have broken his leg, then found it was unharmed, but caught on the window handle. His younger brother in the back was shaken. I don't remember if I had a seat belt on. It was not compulsory yet and anyway only fitted on in the front seats. The steering wheel was bent by my chest – I kept it for a few years. A little of my hair was stuck above the missing front windscreen. I must have been very very close the edge of the road while the car was on its side. Our luggage was in the trees.
Otherwise we appeared unhurt, but bewildered.
The first person on the scene was from the Daily Dispatch. He asked us what had happened and from our lack of wounds seemed to think we were witnesses, not victims. An “inch” of report appeared in the paper the next day. Several other people stopped to peer and help. One was a telecoms engineer. He went up a ladder against the telephone pole, plugged on wires and handed me a receiver. [Years still from cell / mobile phones]. I called home to announce the news. My father didn't seem to startled. A breakdown truck was summoned and they took the car to a Grahamstown garage.
One single roll, skidding along the edge and then down the embankment upside down before coming to rest facing the way we had come. Luggage strewn in the bushes.
The next morning I was in agony. I think that some of my aches and pains even now late in life started at this point.
All this shortly before I turned 21. On returning to university I was keen to tell everyone my dramatic news. No one was interested. They had all either rolled a car themselves or knew someone who had. In those days nearly all white students had cars at some point. And that inevitably led to mishaps. I lost some student friends and acquaintances in car accidents.
My passengers in the accident were pineapple farmers. During the week they brought a farm truck to the Grahamstown garage and took the car to our house. My father got a concrete specialist he had met on a project with a hobby of mechanics to fix it. A car body roughly of the same year was sourced from a Karroo farm, cleared of its roosting chickens, and carted down to replace that so dented. That “mechanic” did most of the work, but my father and I still had to do a lot – including swap engines. I still have the VW badge from the original bonnet.
That car still had a DIY aerial wire from the previous owner. One day while trying to tidy it out in the carport, I yanked at the wire. The whole dashboard went up in smoke as it shorted on the metal framing. I dived for the battery under the back set to avoid complete devastation. Another job for a professional.
One thing about the old Beetles is that they had undercarriage like a tortoise. I had taken up vintage bottle hunting in the bush near the university. It even had a club. This area had been a sand blow-out of beach sand that the council had long ago stabilised with dumped rubbish and Port Jackson Willows. In that bush we could find bottles, ginger jars, bone tooth brushes, bits of porcelain dolls, etc from as early as the 1890's. And also the occasional elephant tusk, ostrich egg or snake. I would put my car into first gear with a stick on the accelerator and while standing on the runner board with my hand through the window would drive along the rough tracks looking for likely spots. Sections of soft sand could be transversed by speeding up and skimming the car over them until the next solid section. I even did parts of the motor-X course. And only got stuck once.
Many students had Beetles. A common prank was to prise off the hub caps and insert stones in them before replacing them. You can imagine the noise when the car was started off again. And the panic of the driver. Fortunately I learnt about this fairly early.
I kept that car for a few years longer – well what was that same car. The same chassis with a slightly later body. Steering columns then were still not much more than shafts with a heavy steeing wheel . I never did get that nut tightened properly between the two. I fun trick of mine was to drive friends and cousins off the road and into open roadside grass, and then casually hand them the steering wheel, asking them to take a turn.........
Although doubts had long been growing for years, I agreed to go to a Christian Science youth conference in Durban. I drove my brother Peter up. And had a great first evening ice skating. It was there that I had a bad fall and couldn't bend my left leg. Peter who had only just learnt to drive, then had to drive us all the way back to East London. ( I still suffer from problems with that left knee).
VW Beetles were prone to falling over and this one was getting old. My father found me a Ford Corsair from a friend. It was thought to look a bit like a submarine. On getting back to varsity in Port Elizabeth I realised that the brakes were very dodgy so needed them attended to. Some time later the engine seized. Cars then needed regular oil and water checks which the “pump jockeys” would do when we topped up. I had not double checked so it must have overheated from a lack of oil and/or water. I bought another engine off a student. A Ford bakkie. Not a complete match. But I installed it with some student and hostel cleaner help amongst the trees on the campus. We removed the bonnet and used offcuts from the ropes used as design feature / sound insulation in the canteen to hoist the engines. At this time the campus was still relatively new and secluded spots could be found close to the residences. I learnt a bit about replacing engine heads and cutting gaskets, but it was all a bit dodgy. Anyway with the help of a proper mechanic I got it back on the road and drove it for a few years more. There remained one problem though. The flywheel of the Corsair had a different bolt arrangement to the replacement engine so I simply fixed in 4 of the 5. That worked. But at low idling speeds the imbalance led to a violent shudder and I would need a mad grab at the gear stick to get it into gear again.
I remember many of the student cars in the early '70s. Some surprisingly grand such as Mercs. Some already vintage such as the old Peugeot a fellow architectural student had with sweeping mudguards and running boards. As a prank some other student painted the green car completely red – with poster paint. In the morning he couldn't find it. Or the very large black Hillman that I got lifts home to East London in at terrifying speeds. Most though were small basic cars. Even the doctor father of one of the students in our residence had a Mini. He parked it in the disabled bay once when visiting. The other students though this cheeky and when he was out of sight, wheeled it right into the lounge and put it on top of some coffee tables. Cars then did not always come with radios. They may though have had an installed aerial in anticipation. Many a student had a transistor radio wired into the car and a few, if they didn't have an aerial or had old transistor that had lost its own radio, had bent wire coat hangers in a strategic place on the dashboard.
The Corsair remained unsatisfactory and I was passed on the Austin 1800 mentioned above.
There it is in a mountain pass in the western Cape.
The predecessor of this was almost the same and I learnt to drive in it. It was not a pretty car, but it was very functional.
A friend, Chris Gay, and I drove up to the Augrabies Gorge Falls and on into Namibia and the Etosha Game Reserve. On passing across arid tracks north of the Falls, we arrived at the Fish River Canyon and slept in the open at the bottom. Then it was on again, this time the tracks becoming even dustier. Our immediate destination being Luderitz. The road through the dunes of true desert had only just been tarred. At that moment my radiator collapsed on one side. I re-fixed it with off-cuts from wire from the new roadside fencing and continued our trip all the way sleeping under a tarpaulin and partially under the car until we borrowed a small tent in Windhoek for the Etosha section. That radiator remained tied in place with fencing wire until we got home again.
I then progressed to a VW Passat station wagon with either a paddle ski or a windsurfer on the roof. It was an outing with the combined Historical Society and Wildlife Society that I found my future bride, Ines, under a tree. I gave her a lift and the rest is history.
A great car to impress the girl of my dreams?
She was to accompany me on some trips up and down the coast and sit patiently while I enjoyed the surf. And she remembers once when the keys got locked in the car on such a venture, that it was simply opened again, by pulling at the locking mechanism through a rusty hole in the door. And she remember the view of the road whizzing by through a rusty hole below her feet.
As romance bloomed we set off for a holiday to Cape Town. We hired a small caravan. Well it may have been small, but it was very heavy. At Plettenberg Bay the car could not pull it up a hallow out of the camp and we needed to be towed. At a very sharp bend in a Garden Route pass we met a very large truck coming the opposite direction. To avoid it I pulled too close to the upright cliff and bent several of the edging channels to take the rope edging of the awning. And the extended mirror was scraped by the truck.
Here it is in the holiday cam near Plettenburg Bay
I then got a 4x4 Datsun bakkie (Nissan pick-up in today's parlance). That extra drive was to prove more a nuisance than a benefit, but we used it extensively to build the house overlooking the Quinera River. It had a fibreglass canopy at the back. It was also at this time that we got married and went on honeymoon. Our romantic intention was to have one first night in a proper hotel on the Wild Coast (well it turned out to be a rondavel – the main hotel taken up by drunken Round Tablers), and then save money by camping. A night in a camp site in Durban turned out to be windswept and sodden and we slept in the back of the bakkie. The two rhino game reserves that we had hope to visit were closed due to flooding. A welcome hotel served us for a night and we then headed for the Drakensburg mountains. As we had not initially planned this and had not booked ahead, we only managed one night in a proper resort, but were then sent an isolated farmhouse used on the reserve and had a very memorable few days - Loteni. Baboons on the roof. Pony rides amongst tall Cosmos. A large cast iron bath. Rainy, but romantic.
Much like this, but a Datsun and pale blue, complete with 4x4 and bull-bars. The rear canopy was removable. (The name on this one has already changed from Datsun to Nissan). Google image.
And then back to see how the house building was coming on. This vehicle was excellent for carting building materials and labourers about, but hardly honeymoon transport. But one day having loaded up gravel donated by the builder at the Museum project, I got the 4 wheel drive gears wrong and stripped them.
The next car was a Ford Cortina station wagon. A great car initially, but heavy to drive (according to 'I', whose stylish powder blue black top Capri was parked next to it – until that needed to be given up). We took Nessie and newborn Caitlin to Cape Town in it. A memorable moment was in the Addo Elephant reserve. A very very small Caitlin in the back with granny (Nessie). I want to see elephants close up, but lost my nerve when an incredibly large bull with long tusks sauntered right up to the car, But it aged badly and Ines, who took it over grumbled about it. Our double garage didn't have doors for some years. Early one morning the police knocked at the door. The car had been hot-wired and driven off. But a neighbour's dog had alerted him. He rushed out with his revolver shooting. The thieves took off leaving the car and some tools. While they had managed to start it, they had not managed to disengage the steering lock.
The Cortina. Note the CE number plate = Cape / East London and the paper disk annual licences.
Those were followed by a Mazda and then a Toyota Venture bus with bright coloured decals on the side. This latter was essentially a high wheelbase station wagon / van. I once got 13 small children and myself into it quite comfortably for a birthday party.
The Mazda got backed into by a large flatbed truck. Slowly. Inevitably. I watched helplessly from the office window across the road.
My Toyota Venture Bus parked on our driveway in Beacon Bay. I really enjoyed this car. Basic by today's standards, but fun to drive. Roof racks for the wind surfer or paddle ski. (Note the fast response private security sign between the garage doors after the worst of the burglaries).
So then we emigrated to Scotland. 1999.
I bought a cheap Rover. I remember experiencing driving through freezing fog for the first time and getting almost stuck on a farm track and having to turn where the sides had crisply frozen grass. Rather nice at first, but it soon showed up some problems such as the front passenger door not closing properly, the driver seat starting slip and the aerial breaking off.
I then bought a green Citroen Xsara. We picked it up from the Citroen dealer in Glasgow and drove off to Newcastle upon Tyne where we met up with the architectural practice social / study outing group. The brakes were stiff, but we persisted and got them fixed later. I did lots of site visit to East Lothian projects in that or in office cars.
The next car was my red Renault Grand Scenic, diesel. An impressive and comfy car, 7 seats, – except....
On a trip back from Aberdeen to see S and university, we were coming into Dundee in heavy traffic and the engine started to play up. We limped into the Renault dealership. No help there so we hired a car and came home. Some sweet talking to Robert at Renton Garage had him send up a pair of mechanics with their own break-down truck (they no longer have one). They brought it back to Renton where they pronounced it beyond repair. I paid them £500 for their troubles (including removing the engine) and he found a buyer who could replace the engine who paid £500 – that meaning that the cost was quits.
So now we come to the coffee coloured Skoda Octavia hatch, again diesel as that was still considered the most economic.
That took cousin S, over from Canada, for visits around the district although I remember apologising for its state. As I started courier work it got even more tatty and scratched, but it did enable quite a few parcels with the seats folded.
The passenger side door got bashed in when I small car hit us in Byres Road in Glasgow one dark and stormy night. The Finnish family were over and were with S were in the car. I had the body work fixed professionally and it looked quite good. For a while....
With my courier work came the need for something larger so I chose a metallic grey Citroen Berlingo. The job is dirty and the chances of scratches and bumps on country roads high. But I had it for years. The worst mishap was when I backed into a low hanging cut off branch in the dark and did the back flap in completely. That needed complete replacement. I just caught the edge of a flat rock protruding from someone's country lawn and it flipped up and penetrated the lower door in a narrow scratch. On another country road, I went over a rock that had come out of the wall and I had mistaken for a shadow through the trees and I had a blow-out. And then there was the time when I was on a dust road in freezing conditions and the suspension snapped, wrecking the wheel as well. I limped back to the garage having weighed up the costs of a break-down service and that of repairs. Evidently snapped suspension is not uncommon when the steel is so cold.
After many years the car took on other problems such as the window not going down and repeated starter problems while out and about and it was time to replace it. This was also the time I had a stroke and felt I needed something much more reliable. That car was scrapped.
Two pics taken for the "scrappage" valuation.
I was teaching C to drive (again) and chose a moderately sized Ford Tourneo Courier. Not bad for deliveries although a little smaller than the Berlingo. This time petrol. A nice size for both of us. It was not long after taking delivery of it that problems arose. The bonnet would not open. The radio got extremely hot. It sounded a bit rough. All the tyres needed re-inflating almost weekly. I decided to keep it a few month and then change again.
But something else happened.
Storm Eowyn in January 2025 brought the very large tree down up the road bringing down the power cables with it. No power. Not warmth or hot bath or supper. I waited until late in the afternoon when the main hurricane force wind had abated and headed out to look for a takeaway.
I drove around Alexandria and sure enough there were some open. Some trees were down. A gable just off the Main Road had collapsed. I recovered some bins and thought I would have a look at Loch Lomond. No easy view so I came back along Pier Road which through woods of small trees. A loud CRACK and the upper part of a tree came down on me. A second before of after?!? A different tree?!? The windscreen was shattered and the door, roof and bonnet dented. I was fine except for a minute sliver of glass in my wrist. A larger tree would have meant a different end to this story. I managed to drive home. The insurance was excellent and I got a good payout.
The Ford Courier all battered and bruised ... and written off.
The windscreen shattered by the smaller branches
With that I got a larger car, a Vauxhall Combo XL. Being larger, yet cheaper, it does have some issues, but it is otherwise an excellent car. And C passed her driving test in it. My previous few cars have had onboard computers. This one is the first to have a proper sat-nav system albeit through my phone. And also an array of other new digital facilities.