DEAD OR ALIVE, YOU WILL BE DRIVEN IN STYLE
I was born on October 5, 1947, in the village of Dunston-on-Tyne. The eldest of four, I was brought up in a council house, or government housing, just like all the other kids. Our dads were hardworking, hard-drinking Geordies: miners, steelworkers, shipbuilders, fitters, and turners. My dad, God bless him, worked in the foundry. What a comedown. Back from the war, where he had been a sergeant major in the Durham Light Infantry, he took the first job he could.
Like everyone else in Dunston, he couldn’t afford a car. He didn’t even own a motorcycle. Factory foremen drove old Ford Populars and Austins, but there wasn’t much to get excited about. Until you had to call out the doctor. When I was ten, I wound up with double pneumonia. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Fairbairn’s reliable Rover, I wouldn’t be here today, banging on to you, my fellow car nuts. There was only a fifty-fifty chance of me getting through the night.
“Pull through, son, and you can have a ride in my Rover,” said Dr. Fairbairn. It was a big, posh car, a four-door saloon with chrome runners and headlights the size of my head. Staring up at the enormous grille was like staring up at the Empire State Building.
Now, if the doctor didn’t make it in time—or when your time was up—you got the ride of a lifetime. Funeral cars were shiny black 1930s Rolls-Royces. Huge buggers, they were light-years ahead of the competition with their 6-cylinder, 7.7-liter engines producing 113 horsepower.
“It’ll be my turn to ride in a Rolls-Royce soon,” the old men used to say.
To a little boy, they were even more impressive than a Rover. They were cars fit for kings and queens. Didn’t the prime minister drive one?
“Why are the doors so big?” I said to Pops as we stood on a street corner, watching a procession of them go by. “So they can get in with their top hats on,” he said.
He meant it, too.