IF HELL WERE A VACATION, THIS WOULD BE IT
Here I have to introduce one of my first loves—and hates. The Jowett Javelin was a sleek, aerodynamic, metallic blue—gold, if you were lucky—exotic bird of a car. In the early fifties, British middle management fell in love with her. She had “class.” Spotting one of these gorgeous cars on a dull Tyneside morning made my heart beat faster. It was a short-lived fancy. They finished manufacturing them in 1953. They were too beautiful to survive England in the fifties, if you ask me. At the other end of the spectrum was Uncle Bill’s Vauxhall, a car I will forever associate with the bitter pill of disappointment. “I’ve got the Vauxhall out the front,” he’d say. Uncle Bill was a dapper man who fancied himself as a bit of a lad. The shame of it was that he delivered bread for Hunters the Bakers. “If I can be of any assistance . . . ?” was another of his lines.
One summer, Pops decided to take him up on his offer. Uncle Bill was dispatched to drive us to a trailer, khaki, ex-army, on the top of a windy cliff in the harbor town of Amble. My father had rented it from one of his workmates, and thought he had himself a bargain. Well, it was the closest one to the pub. If we tried to play football, the winds would send the ball into Cumbria. When we got an ice cream, the gulls would attack us. Would we make it through the week? At night, it was hard to sleep with the trailer rocking to and fro with the gales—dreams of being blown over the cliff onto the rocks below. Oh yeah, and it didn’t have a heater. It was the worst holiday of my life. Pops spent his days—and nights—in the pub. Mum wept. She was from southern Italy, met her sergeant major in the war and followed him back to rainy Tyneside. It was the biggest mistake of her life. The kids fought. At the end of a week, Uncle Bill picked us up in the Vauxhall and drove us home.