Charlotte Vowden: My Grandad's Ford Escort saved me from school bullies, and inheriting my Grandfather's MGA roadster. S8E2

Welcome to MyDot Scar. Thank you.

Welcome to My Data Car, a podcast discussing our personal reaction and reporting my DataCar. And you know what? It doesn't even have to be about my dad's car. It could be your mom, your grand, your parents, your dad. It could make an impression. Let's talk about it.

Hello Charlotte, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you. Thank you for having me on the podcast.

Hi Charlotte, how are you doing?

I'm good, thank you. How are you doing?

Yeah, not too bad, thanks.

So you guys sort of squeeze this in doing lunch breaks and things like that.

Yeah, that's the that's the plan. So yeah, I work I work in the automotive industry anyway. I'm a marketing manager for a car park supplier. So I work from home three days a week. And yeah, this is my kind of lunch break, which normally ends up going a little bit over.

Well you won't tell.

It goes yeah, it goes either it goes either way. So yeah, I end up doing stuff for them. Um so yeah, we fit it into lunch and then I edit it in the evenings and yeah, it stop it stops me sitting there just playing on a phone and wasting my time.

Yeah.

So at least I've got something to show for my time. But yeah.

No, that's a good idea.

And then yeah, John's um you uh do gardening and stuff, don't you, John? So work for yourself.

Yeah, I can't work from home at the moment, unfortunately. Um yeah, so uh yeah, I usually do like a half hour on a Friday, so basically I'll wrap it up and come do this with Andy, and then it's sort of school run time and kids stuff at the weekend.

Wow, nice and busy then.

Yeah.

So uh for the benefit of the tape, we're joined by Charlotte Bowden, who is an automotive journalist, writer, content creator, something along those lines. Is that how you'd describe yourself?

Yeah, I sort of say uh journalist, presenter.

Ah, presenter as well, yeah.

Classic car, adventurer, that kind of thing. Um, because I do broadcast and work for the BBC, so I do radio, I've done TV, um, I host events like you know, the stage and stuff like that. I write, do podcasting a bit, so a bit of everything. So yeah, writer, presenter, classic car, adventurer, hobbyist, whatever. Um, so yeah, bit a bit of everything.

Cool. So yeah, here you are, you've joined us, which is very kind of you to uh give us a little bit of your time. Without further ado, then what's your earliest car memory?

I think I'm gonna go a little bit against the grain here, uh, because my earliest sort of car memory is relatively unremarkable, and I was very, very, very young. Um, because it is of me sitting in a car seat screaming at my mum for more milk. And honestly, it's like like I can even feel the emotion in there of me going, meh. So I must have been really, really young. And that is genuinely the first car memory I've got is sitting in my car seat screaming at my mum because I wanted more milk, and we had literally only reached the end of the road. Um, so I was an absolute snack fiend back then. And I I'm not sure what car it might have been a Ford Sierra because we were a bit of a Ford family. Um, so it might have been a Ford Sierra, but have asked my mum and she can't remember what what she was driving, because I think the sort of like aggressiveness of which I was shouting at her probably prevailed over anything else at the time. Um, so that's sort of my earliest car memory. Um, and there's not sort of too much detail I can go into about the vehicle itself, but going against the grain with my answer is that I think the most formative early car memory I've got is being in my grandad's Mark III Ford Escort.

Okay.

And that was when I was a teenager, and he used to pick me up and take me to secondary school. And I had, I would say, a very a pretty rubbish time at secondary school, got bullied quite a lot. And as I say, he would pick me up from school and we'd sit in the car, and it was this sort of sunburnt, orange, you know, all the interior was faded. But to me, getting in that car was so sort of it was just transformative in the way that I felt because it felt safe. And when I was out of the car, you know, when you come out school gates and someone throws the ball at your head and stuff like that, and getting in that escort just meant safety, security, um, and just and my granddad was a huge man, you know, very, very strong, very tall. And he'd sort of cup my right hand in his hands and just hold it. And it just made me feel so much better after having a rubbish day at school. Um, that car was a was a place of it was a sanctuary for me. Um, but I I didn't really process it at the time. It was just like, okay, I'm in granddad's car and he'll make me feel better. But it's as an adult looking back when you think about how cars have had an impact on your life, and that's when I really realized that this old scruffy Ford escort was really, really important.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know, he'd take me to the fish and chip shop and you know, be like, Don't tell your dad that we're gonna go and get fish and chips. And he it was it was like it was like a little secret, secret place where we could just be together and and he'd just you know comfort me and make me feel better. And I also got bullied about the car because you know we didn't have lots of money um when I was growing up, as most of us, you know, don't and people took the Mickey out of the car, and that then meant they were taking the Mickey out of me even more. Yeah, but I never looked on the car in a negative way because when I got in it, you just feel your body relax. You're like, Oh, I'm with Gramps now, and and and he had it because he was one of those people that kept cars going. Okay, you know, when something went wrong, he'd fix it. So and my dad's a mechanic and he helped my granddad look after it, so you know, it sort of feeds into a lot of what I kind of believe in with cars now is that we should try and keep them on the road for as long as we can.

Yeah, definitely.

And it's not all about looks, and you know, anyone can love any car for any reason, and we should never look negatively on someone for their choice of car or how scruffy it is. You know, you've got events like the Festival of the Unexceptional, which is like a pure celebration of all the sort of unsung heroes of the automotive world. Um, you know, and I love going to events like that, and in a way, I wonder whether that's because you know, I was in one of those cars when I was younger that was kind of like looked down upon and things like that, whereas now we kind of celebrate them.

I was gonna say, um, like on the subject of, well, I suppose unfashionable cars back then, that it was more of a thing, wasn't it, then? But now I don't think necessarily it is. And it goes to show if they've got events such as the one you've just mentioned, then it just proves that that sort of thing has kind of come full circle, hasn't it?

Definitely, and I think it kind of feeds into like the British sense of humour, like we love an underdog, yeah, and you know, generally we're quite good at taking the Mickey out of ourselves. Um, and I think that there is something in that when you you look at those cars that sort of go to things like the festival or the unexceptional, where you know it's kind of like we want to look after the ones that don't have a great time and that get forgotten about and sort of pushed to the sides um of the car park, you know, because they're not the the shiny new cars. And and I think that comes down to you know our sense of humour and we just don't take ourselves that seriously, and we want to have a laugh.

I think there might even be a case of like the super duper impressive or so-called expensive impressive car now. It's probably a bit more embarrassing to turn up in something like that, in a way, isn't it? You'd kind of be pointed at and I mean it'd be nice to have the uh the trouble of that and experience it.

Yeah, wouldn't it?

Um yeah. I mean, I personally I'm the same I'd rather have something old and with character, that sort of thing. But yeah, it's it's funny to think that back in the day it was the other way around, whereas now maybe it maybe it's not.

Yeah, definitely. And we look on these survivors, and you know, I I hope and I wonder whether it's that society is coming back around to this idea of looking after things more and valuing something that's a little bit older and and the craftsmanship and the design that has gone into it. Um, because you look at a lot of the stuff on the road now and it's it's all very similar. Um, you know, the design element for people has been taken out. You know, I've I've spoken to um designers at Ford before. Um, you know, they've had the Ford Capri and things like that, and the EV version. And for them, they're not designing cars anymore, they're designing products. And it's really sad when you speak to creative people who are having to put their creativity in the marketing box and go, okay, well, we need it to sell to this person or that person because you know, fundamentally, that's what these businesses need to survive. Um, so it's all a bit sad when you look at the the contemporary car market. I mean, other people will certainly have a different view of it because perhaps they're more interested in the technology and and you know, it's not to say you can't have fun in an EV, but in terms of you know something that holds value both sentimentally but also in in sort of preservation of history and things like that, that's where that's where it is with classics.

Yeah. So if we go back to your your grandfather's car, it was interesting you said that that was a choice of his to a certain extent he wanted to keep that vehicle going. But was he one for kind of music in the car or was he a smoker? Kind of put us in the in the would you sit in the front, did you sit in the back? Was was your grandma around?

Like Yeah, so it was always just me and my gramps.

Okay.

He wasn't a smoker. Um he I think he did dabble uh back in the day because he was actually a pig farmer. Um, so he before the escort was very much a tractor, sort of van, truck kind of man. So the escort was one of the first sort of, I suppose, family cars that he'd bought.

Okay.

And as I say, sort of had like kept it on the road. Um and it was just very retired in there. But he he would be listening to the radio, always radio four, when I was sort of coming into the car. But as soon as I got in, he'd switch it off, and it was a sort of indication that all attention was on me, yeah, which sounds really like selfish and self-indulgent. But I think for him, it was just he didn't want the radio to be backgrounds because he listened to a lot of talk radio, um, and he loved learning. Um, and that was the way that he learned was through the radio and through books. And so, you know, when he had a passenger in a car, you turned it off. It's quite traditional in that sense. So it was always, you know, just quiet and calm and and a place of conversation. Uh, and I think that you know, that goes for a lot of us when we're road tripping with someone else. It is a place for conversation, it is where those chats can take place because you're both looking in the same direction, and it takes away the intensity of something that might be quite awkward or quite personal to kind of converse about. Yeah, and it had that I it's so indescribable, isn't it? But just that old car smell. Yeah, you know, something really comforting about it, and and the fact that the upholstery on the chairs was tatty, but like an old sofa, you'd sit in the passenger seat, and I know you know I was in the front seat next to him, and you'd just it just fit your body, you know, it just fit because it's had so many bottoms on it over the years that it's got that sort of low-slung, you know, unintentionally so feel to it, and you know, everything was faded, the plastic was cracking, and it was just a warrior, really, that it was still going, and and you know, externally it was this orange, you know. You look back and it was just so sunburn and so tired, but still going. Um, and yeah, just a lot of affection for that car. And as I say, we were a sort of a Ford family. Um, my first car was a Ford Fiesta, my second car was a Ford Fiesta, um, and so I think it sort of feeds into that as well, like the fondness for the brand.

Can you remember what happened to the escort?

It it died a death. Um, it had to go. Do you know what? So the number plate was B. I can't remember the numbers, but then the last three letters were A and Y. And my nan used to say, You can be anything you want. And it came from the escort's number plate, be any. Um, and so that's a nice little memory I've got of it as it's be any, be anything you want. And and I guess as well, like you know, when you're at school, you're told you're put in a box by your peers, you know, you're the you're the fat kid, you're the nerd, you're this, that, and the other. And because I was like really into rock music and stuff like that, you were immediately pushed to the side of what was cool at my school, anyway. And so getting in this car with my grandad who would make me feel like I could do anything, and the number plate was be anything. Um, it all, you know, it when you think about these things, it all just comes together to weave a really beautiful tapestry in terms of how a car can impact you and and and the way you grow up, the way you feel, the way you see cars, um, and the way that you interact with them. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it did eventually went to the scrap heap and he got a SCODA, um, which my dad then took over when he couldn't drive anymore because his sight got really bad, um, which was very sad. And and when he lost his sight, he couldn't take me to school and pick me up from school anymore. Um, and just before it went completely, he wrote a letter. And at the end of it, in the letter, he said, I will miss taking you to school. And he referenced that time that we spent together in the escort and then SCODA for a little while, and and he referenced that and he said, I'll miss our chats. And he said at the bottom of it, show them how it's done, my darling. He said, Show them how it's done. And I got that tattooed on my wrist when I was 20. That's nice, and again, you know, that's all from that time spent in this escort. I've got this beautiful hand-written letter, it's a bit scraggly because he was struggling to see. But the fact that this letter, which now influenced a tattoo that I've got, mentions the time that we had in their car is important to him as well as it was to me, which is really special. So even though the car went, the impact it had has endured, you know, through through to the present day.

That's nice. I see a lot of kids um being brought in. Well, not lots of kids, but you do see the odd kid being brought in by their grandparents, and sometimes it looks like it's a real chore for the grandparents. But it's nice to hear a story like that where it genuinely wasn't a chore, and obviously left a nice imprint on the pair of you, yeah.

Yeah, at the weekends, um, my nan would then join us, um, so she would have stayed at home on the school run. But the weekends, the three of us would go down to Bee's calf, and it was a proper greasy spoon calf right underneath um a block of flats um in North London. And, you know, Nan would let us have one bacon sandwich each, and I'd have a carton of rabbino, gramps would have a cup of tea, and if she was in a good mood, she'd let us have another bacon sandwich. Um, it was you know, that proper cheap white bread, really salty bacon. Um, and then we'd get back in the escort and we'd drive into town, and I'd have my three pounds pocket money that my nan would give me every week, and me and my nan would go shopping, and my gramps would sit in the library, or he'd just sit in the escort. He'd just sit in the escort and listen to his radio, and he'd be in there for two hours sometimes. Because if me and my nan got carried away in Woolworths, then you know, all R's are off, we're in there forever. And so, you know, it was also it was the school run car, but it was also the Saturday morning car where every Saturday we'd go for a bacon sandwich, and then get back in the car after shopping, and we'd go for a tea cake in another calf, you know, and it was just that it was very mundane, it didn't do epic journeys, you know, they never took it anywhere particularly special. It was just the day-to-day taking me to school and and going to the calf and and going to the shops at the weekend. It was a very normal car, but when you think about the times that you spend in it and where it took you and what that time that you had with those people, like my grandparents had a huge impact on my life generally, but specifically with their cars, because of you know, they they sort of looked after me at the weekends and picked me up from school and stuff out because my dad was was working um as I say as a mobile mechanic, so he was really busy, so they kind of like took the baton on. Um and this forward escort was central to to that time.

Did you have siblings, Charlotte? Or were you an only child?

Yeah, so I had an older brother, but he was a bit older, so he was he was like not really around doing his own thing. Yeah, yeah. So it was kind of me and my grandparents. So I was very lucky that I was able to have that time with them, just the three of us, or just me and my grands.

Yeah. I lived with my grandparents for three months or so. So my mum and my stepfather split up when I was just doing my or just before I did my GCSE. So the summer I did my GCSEs, I went to live with my grandparents, which was in the same town. But um, yeah, just to kind of spend that sort of quality time with a different generation or kind of an older generation, just see how they do stuff. Obviously, they're living at a different pace of life and they do the crossword and the evening and watch countdown and all the rest, but you kind of just start learning a little bit more about them and just kind of what makes them tick, and it's yeah, it is really interesting. And also, I kind of as a parent myself, it kind of makes you think about what you do, kind of bringing your children up and kind of how you do those things, and maybe installs perhaps some older values to how you're living rather than um maybe if you hadn't spent that time with them. So um obviously you mentioned the Sierra your parents were having. What was the first car maybe you remember your your folks having?

Uh the Sierra is the first one. Okay, but my dad, as I mentioned, he's a mobile mechanic, so what really made sort of the memories was the vans that he had. Okay, and I can't remember specific models and things like that, but there was one Mercedes he had in particular, and you know, like Mercedes was real posh, you know. It was it wasn't before transit, this was a Mercedes, yeah, and again it was slightly burnt orange-ish, you know, it was on the tired end of uh Mercedes vans that were available at the time, but because it had that badge on the grill, it was like cool, dad's got Mercedes. Um, and I've got memories of him like in the summer where he'd come home from work and he'd be so hot, he'd been in his ovals all day, and he'd take his sort of shirt off and he'd had his jeans on. And he had these again, very odd remembering the detail, but you know, these sort of red leather shoes that he'd change into as he's sort of like cash shoes, you know, he's taken his steel toe cap boots off, and he's put these cash shoes on, and they kind of matched the red of the Mercedes van. And I remember that being parked outside the house and just thinking, what does he do all day with that thing? You know, because it was so huge, you know. You've got the Sierra, but then you had this huge Mercedes van with all his tools in the back of it and things like that. And and when you're young, you don't really or I didn't question him about what he did in his day. He was just dad, he went to work at 6:30 and came home sometime in the evening. Um, and he had this big van for whatever he did. And I love practical vehicles, and I think it comes from that sort of seeing these huge work vans that dad's had over the years. Um, and I used to make um cakes for like his birthday cake, and it would be often shaped like the van he had at the time. So he had a white LDV at one point, and I've got a picture of me holding up this LDV-shaped cake, it looked more like an ambulance, to be honest. Um, but you know, I I I made an attempt because for him, you know, these vehicles were super important, but he kept them again for a very long time, and so they became almost a member of the family because it was like it's like almost postman Pat, you know, he goes off in his little van and does his thing, and and he was known in the community because he fixed people's cars, and so he was almost like a postman pat figure in my head, because that was the only reference point I had to a man that went off in a van every day. Yeah, yeah. So, and obviously because the Mercedes was red, it was like, oh right. And and because people knew my dad and they'd say, All right, Steve, and things like that. So, yeah, I think the vans that my dad had over the years were very impactful, um, and where I got a lot of memories from, and and just things like you know, sitting in the cab, and he'd have you know, you get these huge vats of um hand wash, yeah, and you put it on with like the grit in it, yeah, really gritty, really stinky. Um, but as a child, because it had the pump on the top of it, irresistible. So I'd sit there and go and you know, in my hand, and and then I'd be like, uh Swarfega, was it?

Yeah, yeah, like that, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and then you'd be like, What do I do with this now? It's gross and it smells, sort of wiping it on the seat, and he'd you know be like, What are you doing? Um it's like you know, leave a child with a pump thing, then they're gonna play with it. Um, but just you know, sitting in that cab and there'd be a couple of cassettes there, you know. I remember the Top Gun soundtrack, like cassette tape, super cool. Um, and things like you know, his lunchbox, and he'd have like a half-eaten sandwich in there, about three packets of half-eaten biscuits, and you know, and and he'd go out and he'd used to have like two full Englishes every single day when I was growing up. But because he was burning it all the time, and he'd have sandwiches, and he'd have biscuits, and he'd just, you know, and then he'd have like a satsuma that'd be in there for like a month that would never get eaten. Um, and it was just, I guess, an insight into you know, a work van, you know, what happened in there. And he wasn't one of these crafty people, you know, the stereotypical van drivers where they've got like newspapers down the windscreen and McDonald's wrappers and things like that. He was very tidy. Um, if it kept it very tidy, and the back of his hand was always very tidy. Um, and then that led into the memory of at the end of the week there'd just be a pile of his overalls by the washing machine, and they were just really stinky, and he was like, you know, but not really understanding what postman Pat did.

What was the um do you know what was the attraction of Ford? Was that just the fact that your grandfather had one, that's why your parents bought them? Or were you in Essex? Were you living in Essex?

So we didn't live in Essex, we do you know, Enfield. Yeah, we lived near Enfield. Okay, but I think it was because they were seen as a very reliable brand. You know, it was quite a British sort of car, and my granddad was quite a traditional sort of person, and so it was a Ford because it was a British brand, and da da da and you could fix them quite easily, you know. Back then they were far more easy to fix than they are now, yeah. And I think it just led into that really. I don't think there was anything, you know, no none of us worked at Ford or anything, there was no connection in that regard, but they were just sort of reliable cars, and I think to a degree quite cool ones. Not that we ever had a capri or anything, but you know, they were yeah, they I don't think there's anything specific about it, it was just the cars that they chose.

Yeah, yeah. Is it fair to say that your dad's profession is the reason why you are into cars then, Charlotte?

Or um no. Uh so weirdly, I so we used to go to car shows, we used to go to air shows, and I you know, it'd be me, my nan, my gramps, and my dad. And I found them so boring. Oh my gosh. If there was a craft tent, that's where I'd be. If there was an ice cream van, that's where I'd be. I just wasn't interested growing up at all. I was like, I'm gonna go off to London because my gramps had said, you know, I really liked writing and think I was very creative. And my gramps said, You'll get a column in the Times, girl. And he said that to me in the Ford Escort, said, You'll get a column in the Times. Um, and I went on to spend a decade working at the Sunday Times, and we had no connection, anything like that. But you know what it's like, you just you graph for it. Wow, um, so I went off and did London, you know, completely different to my gramps, to my dad. And then it was in 2017, so I came to this all quite late, that I became the custodian of my other grandfather's MGA Road Star. Okay, and that was a turning point.

So is that on your mother's side? Yeah, okay, yeah.

So it was my mum's dad, and it transformed my life irrevocably, personally, professionally, in every single way possible. Um, so my mum's dad, um, who I call Dodo, so I'll probably say that quite a lot. So Dodo is my mum's dad, my granddad. Yeah, um, he bought this MGA roadster in 1991. Oh wow, and I was born in 1988, so I was three years old, and I've got photographs of me sitting in the car looking over the side of the door when the roof was down, all of that kind of back catalogue of references that I don't actually remember much of. Um, but that car had been in my life pretty much my entire life, and sadly, my grandma on my dad's side passed away relatively young, and my other grandparents lived a bit further away, so we didn't see them as much. Um, but when I was older, I had a car and I could go and visit them myself, and so I got a lot closer to Dodo, my mum's dad, and I had the privilege of getting to know him as an adult, and he died when he was 92 years old, and he was still driving this MG at the time. And in those last sort of five years of his life, we spent a lot of time together. I was still working in the city at the Sunday Times, and I'd drive up every week um to stay over at his. We'd listen to records, we'd have dinner, and we'd just get to know each other. Um, you know, on a different level to being a you know, it goes from being a grandchild to being a friend and a confidant, you know, when you when you're older. Um, and at the weekends I'd visit him and we'd go out on EMG if it was a nice day. And it was just, you know, I was always a passenger, I never drove it. I was always the passenger. It was like Lady Penelope and Parker, you know. Um, I loved it, I absolutely loved it. And and the car was a retirement present to himself, and he'd always coveted one because um his older brother had had an MG during the Second World War. Okay. He'd always wanted one, so he'd been able to achieve that. And for him, it was a place where he could be a bit naughty. It was a place for hijinks, you know. He he was a very well-to-do person, he had perfectly quaffed hair, always wore a shirt, always wore braces. Um, and you know those sort of metal things that you put on your shirt sleeves to keep them or cufflinks. Yeah, but they're a band that go around the forearm to sort of keep the sleeves not puffed up. He he had all the accessories of a gentleman, you know. But in this car with the roof down, it would ruin his hair, and he didn't care. It was a real place of relief for him where he could let out that wilder side because he's very conservative and very just so. And he was also a tiny, tiny man, and you know, he's just like he's like just about see over the steering wheel kind of thing, because obviously the seats in an MGA are quite low, yeah. Um, so the the sort of clearance over the steering wheel, you've got to be quite sort of taller to to make it. And I'd sit in that car sometimes and think, I'm going to die because he'd be putting his foot down, you're like, uh oh, uh-oh. And then you know, we'd get home fine. And so I'd started to spend more time with him and and and that MG. And when he passed away, as I say, I became custodian and I got it, I understood because I got in that car and I had no idea how to drive it, which to some people will sound like an alien concept because I knew how to drive cars that were manual. I, you know, I know how the nuts and bolts of how to drive a car work. But as you guys all appreciate, and I'm sure people listening, is that every single different car, especially older ones, has a nuance to it. And I couldn't get it, I couldn't get the handbrake to release because it's um, you know, like a racing one. It's a very, very slight lift click drop. I just kept lifting, just kept lifting, couldn't get it to had to go and find a neighbour, they couldn't do it, and eventually managed to get that sort of ah, it's just a quick up and a drop. And I took the MG out. As I said, I'd never driven it before, and I was in my sparkly sandals, my shorts, sunglasses on, roof down.

Nice.

Honestly, you couldn't make it up. About 20 minutes into it, heavens opened, hailstones, and you know, and it's like, where has this come from? Um, and I pulled into a services uh in Cambridgeshire.

Feels like something from a ROM com, doesn't it?

Oh, it was so embarrassing.

Jude Law pulls in.

Yeah.

Yeah, if only. Um yeah, I was a single gal at the time, so that would have been uh pretty creep. And um pulled into the services, found a corner, and I was struggling to put this off top up. And luck would have it, that two guys in their classic cars were on their way to something, they came over and were like, You alright? No, not really. And they helped me put the roof up, and then they asked me where the windows were, and I was like, um dunno. Um, and they were at my grandad's house because with the MG, you have to take like so they were back in the garage, and by this point, the interior of the car was saturated with water, you know, these beautiful leather seats with those sort of indentations where the stitching is pooled with little puddles.

Okay.

And I limped the car home and I got onto a roundabout and I couldn't get it into gear, I didn't know where the lights were. You know, when it was just all the stupid mistakes you could make, I did it in that one drive. Yeah, and I got back to my granddad's house and I just thought, okay, I've got to respect this car.

Yeah, yeah.

And the process of learning how to look after it, how to drive it, it really made me feel empowered because a lot of people, well, no one I knew my age had ever driven anything like that, and it sort of set set me apart in a way. And I started writing about it for the Sunday Times, and and things just went from there. And and I think that was the thing. It just took that car and almost being frightened by it to learn that you've got to respect them, and and once you respect them, they will give you so much back. And I've driven the car like thousands of miles, thousands and thousands of miles, and on some really tough roads, you know, in the UK, but also I drove it to Nordcat last year, so that's the furthest point in mainland Europe you can reach in a car. Okay, it was 6,000 miles in 20 days with my dad, and yeah, she so I say she, she's called frisky because the number plate is FSK 302, and yeah, so that was my spark moment, is what I'd like to call it. It happened in 2017 on that first drive, and I just thought, I get it. Um, and you know, my job is is is telling stories, and I am constantly impressed, surprised, inspired by people that I meet and the stories and the relationships that they have with their cars, whether that's one because they have got the mechanical and engineering know-how to restore a car, to keep a car on a road, or whether they enjoy it because it works and they just love taking it out, and someone else does the mechanics on it. But it's such a privilege to meet so many people who are just incredible, and and people don't realise they've got a story until you give them the opportunity to tell it. And and I ask people about their car stories, and and very much like you guys do, you know, it it can really change your day when you hear someone else's story, and and it gives you the opportunity to reflect on something in a different way, and fundamentally it's all because of a car, and that's not meaning to say that cars aren't important, like just a car, but it's that sort of the the relationship between man, woman, and machine that can be built up, particularly with historic cars, is that people worked in factories and put these cars together by hand, and that's really special. Um, so in a roundabout way, yeah. I wasn't sort of interested growing up, but I've always been around it because my dad loved them um and worked on them. But it was not until I experienced a spark moment for myself did I realise how important cars can really be.

Have you um have you kind of got your hands dirty since owning it? So your dad's sort of shown you the rope, so to speak.

Yeah, it's uh it's been an interesting uh transformation in my uh practical level of skills because my dad and I are very different people. I am much more emotional. My dad is, I call him the tin man sometimes. So working on the car together has actually, I would say, not improved our relationship, but developed our relationship in a way that I don't think would have happened had it not been for the MGA's presence. Okay, because we have had to learn how to understand and appreciate each other's temperaments and the way that we work, because I knew very little about the mechanics of how a car works in terms of what's under the bonnet. You know, I knew how to do the basics, you know, the checks that you get taught when you learn to drive, and I've learned things as things have gone wrong over the years on my fiestas and stuff like that. But this is a very different thing where you know, learning in detail how it works, and when a little bit more goes wrong, you you get to know the car in a different way. And you know, I come from a journalistic background, I write stories, I do sort of radio TV bits and pieces, and so that's what my skill set is. Whereas my dad, he's the mechanic, and working on the car together, as I say, we've had to understand how our processes are, and and for example, like when he's trying to explain something, he starts at step five because he has forgotten what it's like to be at step one, he just takes it for granted because everyone he speaks to on a daily basis knows step one to five, and it's when you get to five that you go into the nitty-gritty of something that it gets more complicated. And so I've had to say to him, it's like if I put you in front of a computer and said you've got to write an article about this, you wouldn't know where to start. That's where I am with mechanics, yeah. And it's been quite quite a beautiful thing, really, because we we've got so much closer. Um, and you know, when there might be flashpoints in the early days of my dad getting annoyed because I didn't understand something, it doesn't happen anymore. But then I've also learned that when something goes wrong, for example, when we're on a road trip, don't ask questions because my instinct questions, questions, I want to know every single step of the thing. And it's it took a time for me to to sort of shut that down because in that moment my dad needs to concentrate, he doesn't necessarily know what the problem is, and he's doing the problem solving in his head. Whereas I'm standing there, like, oh, what do you do now? What's that? What do you think it is? What could it be? And he's like, Look, just back off, we'll go through it later. And so it's things like that where I have to switch myself off, but then he also has to sort of switch parts of his personality off because he's never worked with anyone before, so he's never had to explain anything to anyone, and it's brilliant because when we do road trips now, I think because we come from very different places and we both got very different skill sets, we're not competing. So we don't argue anymore because I trust my dad to be making the right decisions with what he's doing, and he trusts me to do what I'm doing. So, for example, when we did this trip last year to NordCap, we'd allocated around three weeks to do it, and the goal was to drive to Nordcap so North Cape in Norway and scatter some of Dodo, my late grandfather's ashes, which is effectively at the top of the world. You know, it's the furthest point that I could take his car in mainland Europe.

Yeah.

And dad sort of prepares the car, I help him where I can, I do what I'm told, we do the checks, we do the oil changes, you know, we go through an inventory of spare parts that we might need, you know, we work on that stuff together. And then when things are going, you know, every day on the road, we both have a set of checks that we're in charge of. At the start of the day, at the end of the day, we tidy the car, we prep the car, we lock the car, you know, we have our roles, and because we've got different roles, there's no flashpoints because you're not sort of saying, I know better, I know better. We we've got ourselves established, and then I do the logistics, so I'm looking at routes, I'm looking at accommodation, and we don't book anything before we depart, we book every single day as we're on the road. Oh, okay, because you don't know you might see something and spend longer there, something might go wrong with the car. So they're very free-spirited trips, and my dad trusts me to find somewhere to stay that is suitable. Yeah, and if I can't, he knows I've done my best, and so he wouldn't get annoyed. And we've got um thermal overalls in the car with hoods, so that if we ever got to the point, you know, when we're in Norway, it's very remote in some places. If we didn't have anywhere to sleep, we can just sleep in the car. Not saying it'll be enjoyable, but we've got the plan B. Yeah. Um and we're both very organised people, you know. The car is it's HQ, it's mission control. In each door, we've got head torch each side, we've got um a fire extinguisher each side, so that if there is an emergency, both of us have a central kit to get out and do what we might need to do. And it's it's really cool to have become such a team with my dad. You know, we spent 20 days on the road together in a 1960 MG, and we had one argument, and that was just over something, it was like really stupid. It was like I was in the bathroom, he was telling me to hurry up. That was it, yeah, and it was just tempers flared because we were both shattered. This was like day, I don't know, 16 or 17 or something, and we were just really tired.

And afterwards, we were like, I thought you were gonna say you wanted more milk again.

Yeah, imagine it'll have been gin at this age, it's gin now, yeah, but not driving, of course. And yeah, and that was the one thing we argued about in 20 days, you know. And on the first day of that trip, you know, these cars know. Um, so you know, my dad has prepared the MG within a nth degree of its life, you know. Day one, it lost half a litre of oil out of the rear main, and we were just like, no, you know, because that is a lot of oil to lose, and where it was leaking, it's flicking onto the clutch, and this is day one. Um, and it was pretty fraught, and it was one of those situations where I'm like, is this trip over? What's gonna happen? Is there anything we can you know? And I had to just keep it zipped and just left it to settle overnight, topped it up with oil, and we had I think we had six litres of oil with us, which should have been well enough to see the trip. Um, but at the rate of loss and how far we had to travel, we wouldn't get to NordCap. And obviously, you've then got the issue of component wear, component fail because there's no oil, so it's not not a good thing to be doing. Thankfully, the rate of loss lessened as we got out of Central Europe because it was less hot, um, so viscosity is stickier, so it doesn't come out as quickly, and you know, we managed to accomplish the trip safely because you have to make difficult calls sometimes, you know, and you've got this gold to get to NordCap on the first day, you lose half a litre of oil out the back of the engine. Great, you know, these cars do know how to add a bit of jeopardy to a scenario sometimes, but it was so frustrating because we'd done everything to prepare this car, and you can't you can't foresee that, you know, you just can't foresee that. Um, and we didn't argue, we just sort of came together over the issue and just made decisions, and we're like, if if this happens, then we can get trailed or we can go from here, we can get a ferry back from the Hook of Holland, and you know, you just get into the logistics of it, so you try to take the emotion out and you put the more practical approach back into it. Um, and yeah, but I mean that that car is just one of the best things that's ever happened to me, really. Um, it's amazing. And I always think of my granddad when I've been, I've got his little photograph taped to the windscreen, it's all tatty and stuff now. Nice, but he's he's always there, he's like on the shoulder, and my dad and I have done some incredible drives in it, raising money for like the blood bikers. We did 2,000 miles in 46 hours and 59 minutes, non-stop, apart from swapping. Um, so we've pushed the car because it's a privilege, and I want to do something purposeful with it, you know. So if I can raise money for charity or you know, share the experience with other people, then then I will do.

It's interesting, isn't it? That obviously the tragedy of leaving your your grandfather kind of pushes you to do that, and it's similar for me, for example. I lost my dad eight years ago, probably, but I've done so much since that happened that it's kind of pushed me to do various things, including the podcast. And yeah, I wouldn't have been doing that if I hadn't have lost him. Obviously, you wouldn't go back to that situation, you don't want to kind of get rid of someone, but it's because of that, and you've had to deal with it in a certain way, and it's just inspired you and kind of given you that kick which is like, Yeah, I'm really gonna do this, and you kind of do that, and half of you're doing that for them because you think actually, yeah, I'd have loved to have done that with them. So, yeah, like your grandfather in spirit is kind of riding along with you on that trip, yeah, not very much so in a jar by something sandwich bag, he was in a sandwich bag on that one. But yeah, there's there's a bit of you which is like, yeah, we're doing this for you. And I I kind of I I live in a similar way, I kind of do things because I think yeah, that would have been something I'd have wanted to do with my dad, or yeah, if that opportunity came up, he'd have said yes.

So um was he very formative to your passion for cars?

Uh yeah, so kind of very quick background. Yeah, he was um he was a car trimmer, uh like automotive upholstery. So I didn't grow up living with him, but I'd go off and see him every few weeks, and he had kind of classic cars. So as a child, he had an E-type when I was about eight or nine, so we spent quite a bit of time in that. He had a Damola V8, like a Mark II jag. Um, we had kind of a various number of cars which um he borrowed from a friend who used to import them from the States and he'd sell them on his behalf, and then whatever he was working on, whether that was kind of a yeah, K from Severn or a Ferrari or whatnot, if it was kind of available, he lived he lived in a flat above his workshop. So we'd go there and that'd be literally the first thing I'd do straight in the workshop. And like if there was an opportunity, I was like, Oh, can we take that one out? And he'd agree that, oh yeah, I'll just go and turn it around or something, and we'd just whiz it around the obviously had tray plates and all the rest, but yeah, we'd go and whiz it around the block and he'd give me a run in it. So yeah, he's probably the reason that I'm kind of lied this way.

How about you, John?

Uh I wouldn't say my dad was sort of like a petrol head, but he used to take me to car shows that sort of thing, but it was probably more of a similar story to your grandfather with the escort, really. I I just used to spend all my time in the car school runs and we used to go in a tweet shop, so we used to go to the cash and carry and I'd jump in, you know. We were lucky that you had a Mercedes back in the day when a Merck was a Merck, you know, so it was quite a privilege to sit in the back of that and uh yeah, roll around with my brother and yeah, just a lot of memories of that car, really. I think it's probably a case of if I could get my hands on a classic and space for a classic, that would be the one that I would probably try and uh get my hands on. Um but yeah, as Andy often says, it's one of those ones of do you want to meet your heroes sort of thing. But it'd be nice to have the choice.

It's a risk, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. But at least it's achievable, you know, it's not like it's uh an Type, which isn't necessarily achievable. So, yeah, yeah, different sort of backgrounds really in terms of why we're into cars, but we are, aren't we? We are where we are, I suppose.

Yeah, we all find our way here somehow. Like I've just finished writing an article and I've mentioned my spark moment, and I've approached different people from within the industry and asked them to share their ideas on how we can create spark moments for the next generation.

Yeah.

Um, because we had relatively analogue childhoods and we entertained ourselves, you know, it was channels one to four. There were my my dad had the first mobile phone, and it was like a car battery-sized battery with a receiver on the end of it, you know. I remember, and he drove over that in his Mercedes van and it survived. Um, so that just gives you an indication of how substantial the original mobile phones were. But you know, our upbringings, we had more time, I think, to spend with people. And so things like going for journeys in cars were much more of an occasion. Whereas now, if a kid's in a car, potentially they might be looking at an iPad or an iPhone or something else to keep them entertained because the journey itself isn't entertainment. And I remember as a kid going to uh Dodo and my nana's house, we were in North London and they lived in Cambridge here, and so it was like I don't know, a 50-minute car ride, and it felt like days, you know. Um, and and we didn't get, you know, I'm sure we were given toys and things to keep us entertained, but I do remember just being fascinated by how far we were going. As the crowfies, it's not that far, but as a small kid, the journey was entertaining, especially when you came home at night, you know, it was dark, and it was just I remember it's a strange memory to have, but going along the A10, and um, you know, they used to burn, they still do, uh, rubbish underground, and you'd have like a funnel coming out with a blue flame. And I always remember seeing that, and it was a beaker that represented the fact that we were getting near home. We're seeing this burning trash flame coming out of the ground. And as I say, nowadays, car journeys, I think to younger people, it's not so much of a treat, it's not a thing. It's like you get in the car because you're going somewhere to do something else, and and that's what you're focused on. And the experience of a car, they're far more integrated with things like telephones and stuff like that. And so there's a lot more distraction in them. I do review a few EVs. Um, it's more to sort of keep the uh cash flow coming in than a passion. But you know, freelance, you've got to diversify a little bit, and I think as well, it's good to drive these cars so you can have an informed opinion. Because I think if you just say no, I don't like it, basing it on no experience whatsoever, then you're kind of on the back foot. Whereas if you can drive them and actually say this is why, it puts you in that stronger position.

Um I suppose like in terms of a spark moment with young people now, like back in the day for us, all cars had different engine notes and smells. Whereas now, you know, kids playing off all that that makes a nice word, isn't it? That Tesla, or it's hard to see how you can get the spark now, isn't it, with modern vehicles, I think. Well, I to be honest, I I think that the high performance cars all seem to sound very similar as well now, really. But yeah, I suppose when we were younger we had, you know, real cars, we had toy cars that we used to play with. I don't know if kids play with cars anymore. My daughters certainly don't, but um yeah, it'd be interesting to see how how it evolves with the next generation of petrol heads, EV heads.

Yeah, EV heads.

The car journey is interesting, like we've brought our two up very much tech-free, they're not on tablets, etc. I was chatting to my wife about this the other day because the kids were talking about it, and it's like, actually, at no point does a child go or a baby go, I want my tablet. That's a parental instigation. At some point, the parents gone, here's a device, because I want peace and quiet. Yeah, and at that moment you dig a hole for yourself, yeah, and then the child becomes reliant on it. Like we did a journey up to Herefordshire a few months back, and my wife's got a stitch counter because she does crochet, and the kids sat in the back and they counted minis, and we counted like three or four hundred we did go past the dealership. Cheating, isn't it? We counted three or four hundred minis on the way up, and they had a whale of a time counting minis.

Yeah.

So yeah, you've not gotta give your kids pepper pig. Like, we're in control of that. Sometimes, yeah, you can think, well, yeah, it would be great if you just were quiet because I want to do this, but the seed you sow is that yeah, your kid won't go anywhere without that entertainment. Yeah, and then that Lind leads into adults or young adults who always need that stimulus because they can't be on their own, or they can't do those sort of things. The other thing I was gonna say is I've got recollections of being a child, you know, just the 30 seconds or the 10 seconds you wake up as your car pulls onto the drive and there's kind of just the engine note changes, maybe there's a slight chill in the air because someone's opened the door, or just the vibration stops, and you're like, ah, we're home, and then you've got to get upstairs and go to bed, or whatever it is. Yeah, I can't kind of put my finger on exactly what that is, but yeah, I remember that as a kid kind of travelling.

Yeah. You've reminded me, um, so when my mum um mum and dad split up, I didn't see my mum for a little while, and then when I started to see her again and I'd visit her house on the drive home from her house to my dad's house, I'd always make her go the longer way because in the car you'd get more time with each other.

Okay, yeah.

So again, that's reminded me of that it's the journey, isn't it? It wasn't yeah, and it would have been five minutes difference taking a different road and and just so that we could have a little bit longer together because I was going back to my dad's and you know, you're just eking that time that you've got out, and that was in a Ford, that was in a Ford as well. That was another escort.

Okay.

So yeah, they've been uh Ford has been quite uh formative in in the car thing, but sort of with the with the spark moment subject, I sort of spoke to various people, and there's sort of incentives out there and and sort of programs and schemes to try and encourage the younger generation into automotive, whether that's as a career or just as an enjoyment thing. So you've got like Hero Era, they do rallies, okay. Um, and they launched something called Rally for the Ages. I think it was about three years ago. And if the combined age of the driver and the co-pilot who would be doing the navigating on the regulatory rally was less than 70, you got free entry, and they've had kids young as 12 on the Widow's Podium.

Brilliant, nice.

Because you know, a lot of this is about cost, yeah. Cars are expensive, and insurance is really expensive, and so it's trying to find entry points where it makes it more accessible and more achievable for young people. Um, but also like speaking to the British Motor Museum, you know, having different open days and and doing exhibitions that look at art, automotive art. You know, me as a little girl, I might have gone to the British Motor Museum and been like, oh, boring, because my dad's got his head in another engine. But if there was an exhibition that showed me artwork as a creative kid, that might have been my spark moment. Because I think you know, I've come into the space, I suppose, from a different perspective, and I see the car as like the centre of the universe. But if you're looking at it from a career point of view, you could be the person that you know, you could be an artist that focuses on cars, and that could be anything from traditional mediums to graphic design to all of that kind of thing. You could be someone that makes sculptures, you could be someone that does the engineering, you could do the colours of paint. I mean, that in itself is a career because nowadays the nuance of like blending these colours for bespoke vehicles and stuff like that, you could be someone that writes about cars, you could be a videographer, you could be someone that designs road trips, you know, there's so much potential around this object for an incredible life, incredible opportunities, but it's just getting that interaction with young people and the car. Like there's a charity called Starter Motor that are basically Bist of Motion, and their focus is exactly that.

We had um we recorded with Gracie from Starter Motor.

Oh, she is amazing.

Two weeks ago, didn't we? We've yeah, I've not edited it yet, but yeah, we've had her on.

She's brilliant, she's like hope for us yet. That is what she represents. I was on a road trip with her last week in Wales, uh, and we got stuck in a flash flood, and we were in a pub eating Kristen pork scratchins this time last week. Amazing together. Um, she is incredible, she's so passionate, so impressive, and just the best kind of advocate that you would want for the car scene, both in you know, getting careers, but also just getting people passionate about it. You know, we need more people like Gracie. She's she's so cool. Um, yeah, a massive fan of Gracie.

Uh I'd love to do, I've kind of organised events not to the scale, but I'd love to do a car show that is for children and kind of talking about the museums and things. If if you went to Beauty for argument's sake, and as your child walked through the door, they gave them a digital camera and basically said, take 10 photos of the museum and then kind of bring them back. Or maybe if they set up drawing stations in front of particular cars and said, Look, stop here and do this, and actually, maybe there's children's days in those places where it's not a sea of adults and they become almost a nuisance in in that environment, actually, that the whole thing is targeted at yeah, you take your time here. If you want to sit and draw this car, you do it. Yeah, like it's not that oh, you're gonna get in the way of an old man who's seen this car ten times before, but you just kind of lure it after it. Yeah, you enjoy the fact that it's got this mixture of chrome or it's got wheels which don't have wheel bolts, or they're made of wood, or whatever it might be. And also the the idea of explaining how they work, the basics of that physics of how does it work, why does it stop, the the sciences which are involved with that. And I think that would be interesting to be taught at a school level, kind of start these kids at five, ten years old.

Yeah, yeah, it'd be super cool, and I think as well, um, this is something that I'm really passionate about is supporting uh more sort of backing on sustainable fuel because I think having interviewed a lot of people over the years who have got children, a significant number of them say that their children, if they have them, see the classic car as dirty and they're like, oh, it's dirty, it's polluting, da-da-da-da-da. And it's like, you know, us within the world, we know that the carbon footprint for many of the classic vehicles, potentially not the modern classics, but you know, a lot of the classics and historics. The carbon footprint in their manufacturer has been spent, the way that they are kept on the road is using old parts or you know, new old parts and things like that. And they are an example of sustainability at its finest.

It's recycling, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. But the problem we've got is that they are running on fossil fuel. EV is not the green alternative. There is no way I don't think that you can argue that it is because of the way that they're manufactured and the battery is, you know, all things in mind and things like that. So I am really keen to encourage people to look into sustainable fuel as an alternative. Now, there are obviously problems such as availability and cost, yeah. But the only way that those two things are going to change is that if people learn about it and if they think that it is based on the information that we have access to, if they think it's a good option, then they speak to their local MP and they get behind it because if it gets support and legislation, it gets investment, the price comes down and it can be put into any forecourt tomorrow.

It's a bit like the adoption of organic food, isn't it? If you go back kind of 15, 20 years ago, that was, I guess, maybe reserved for health food shops or the kind of the very wealthy people who live in London. Why am I going to buy this organic or why am I going to buy a free-range one of these because I can buy a blue stripe version for 20 pence? And actually, it's not just about the 20 pence you're spending there, it's the good that you're doing, or the fact that you're backing British farmers or all those sort of things, rather than just saving the money at the wallet. And how many people in classic cars, especially now, would be like, okay, yeah, we spent two quid a litre or whatever it is on fuel in the past five years. If it went back to two quid a litre but it was sustainable, would you swallow it? Or would you pay an extra 20p a litre at the moment to go, okay, this is actually doing some good. We can hold our heads up high going, actually, we're now doing a better job than everyone else buying E5, E10 out of the pump.

It's it's interesting because uh I mentioned before that I'm want to use uh my grandad's MGA with purpose, and and all my road trips have a meaning. And so this year's kind of I do a big expedition every year. Last year was NordCap. Uh, this year, because I'm pregnant, it was slightly you know less less mileage and uh less ambitious. But before I knew I was expecting um I'd organised to do a road test of sustainable fuel. So I approached uh Coraton and their subbrand Sustain produced sustainable fuels for motorsport and classic vehicles. Um, and so I used a blend called uh Classic Super 80, and they don't like the term drop-in solution because it's a lot more scientific and complex than that, but it is a drop-in solution. You can put the fuel straight into the car and drive away. So I decided that a thousand miles was a nice neat number to do a test run with the fuel. I started in central London and finished in Edinburgh, and that follows the thousand mile trial that happened 120 years ago when they tried to prove that cars could make that distance. Okay, and so they didn't do the same route sort of exactly as that I did because they did a lot of wiggly wobbly out of. Um I went straight up the A1 and then went into Scotland to do the thousand miles, but because obviously it's not uh at fuel stations, I had some distributed uh to Oundor in Northamptonshire, so I went from London to Oundal to a workshop there, um, and then the motorist in Leeds, and then had some in Edinburgh, and then I met the Scottish Motor Racing Club at Nock Hill Circuit and refueled with them because they use it in their um racing cars. Obviously, it was different blends, but I used the classic car one that was suitable for them, and it's that sort of thing, it's like the car ran fine, there was no problems, and you know, I'm gonna be writing articles about it and you know, just chatting about it in situations like this to sort of say like it is doable, we just need the distribution and the price to go down, you know, and so using the car to show that it can be done, it can work, and it's 80% sustainable. So this particular fuel is made from um sort of like farm waste rather than fossil fuel, it's farm waste, so straw and things like that um that wouldn't have gone into the food chain, and so it's carbon neutral, and so yes, it's which is you're still putting carbon into the atmosphere, but it's captured carbon rather than new carbon, yeah, yeah.

It's gotta be more trade for farmers as well, isn't it? Based on what you just said there. Yeah, which they're desperate for, yeah.

Yep, absolutely. Um, so you know, it's looking into things like that. It's like I've been given a massive privilege to have this car. There's no way I would have been able to afford it myself now. And I want to do something that means something to more than me with it, which is give the sustainable fuel a go. Yeah, yeah. See what it's like. Because it may not work out in the end, but I'd like to think it might because it's to me, it just makes sense. Um, because you've got like two billion cars on the road in the world. Why are we not, you know, why are we not looking at keeping those going? Why are we building new ones? We don't need new ones, but again, it's it's a bigger picture than that.

Well, you're sat there in a Victorian house. Yeah. Like obviously there has been a spate of kind of knocking old buildings down and kind of the war didn't help, but yeah, you're sat there in a house, and there's absolutely no need to do that. You can go through and kind of modernise that to the point where you can live comfortably, and actually, yeah, it was probably built better than a house that was built ten years ago.

Oh yeah.

If you need any mid-century furniture, just let me know because sort of during my gardening downtime I started trading a lot of old furniture. Have you really? Yeah, I have, yeah. Oh wow. And to be honest, it ties in well with what we were saying earlier about you know this stuff that was made in the 50s and 60s, it's just as good as new, pretty much. You know, it's still the build quality is incredible. Like chest of drawers. Whereas now, you know, chest of drawers comes out of Argos. Yeah, it's not going to go beyond where it is now. You know, it might go on to one other home, but chances are it will go into the skip finds it. Whereas this entry stuff, I speak to people that are getting rid of it because their parents have died or grandparents, and they've said, Oh, they bought these in the 50s, brand new, sat in this house since 1958 or something. And it's just a testament to the build that will just go on and on. But yeah, I guess throwaway lifestyle and culture has just come in and well, yeah, in terms of furniture, anyway, it's dominated, it's doing it with cars now as well, isn't it? What we were saying at the start.

Yeah. It makes me really sad because it's just you know, we are so bad at everything's designed to have a lifespan, like you know, our iPhones and things like that, they're designed to fail. And don't get me wrong, car build quality hasn't always been the most exceptional, has it, you know? But I just think it it does make me quite distressed actually to think of how wasteful we are, you know. I I was always taught is sort of like do one thing and do it well and save up, buy it well. Rather than buying 10 pairs of rubber shoes, save up and buy one pair of good shoes. Like my Gramps again, he said to me one day, because you're gonna work in London at the times, get yourself a pair of brogues. And I remember the day that I went to, it was at Debonham's at Monument Station, um, near Monument Station in London. And I went to Debonham's, and you know they've got different fancy shops within the shop. No, it wasn't Debonham's, it was House of Fraser, that was it. House of Fraser, um, with the shops within the shops, and I went and bought these brown leather brogues with wooden like heel, you know, like proper shoes, and I think they were about 75 quid. And I was like, I've never spent this much money before, and it felt like the best thing ever, and I've still got them. Um, my feet must have expanded in my old age because they don't fit anymore, but I'm gonna mount them at some point and and put a little plaque on it and say, like, you know, I think it was like 2009 to 2019 Sunday Times with the brogues because they represent something, because it really meant something. I'd saved up, I'd got the job, I was doing it, and I got the brogues that Gramp said I'd be able to buy one day, and as I say, I've still got them, they haven't fallen apart, my feet have just got big. Um, so you know, and it's stuff like that, you know. I think there's with cars, there's that sense of achievement, you know. If you really want a car, when you get your first car, there is nothing like that feeling of freedom. And you know, I know I said that things changed for me when I uh took on the custodianship of the MG, but I still remember that feeling of independence when I got my driver's license and I got my Ford Fiesta, and I was like, I am on the road, and it was like I don't have to ask for lifts anymore, I can go to Tesco's on my own, I can go to the cinema, I can go to South End on the sea, like immense feeling, you know, and there's nothing like that. And I just hope that there are still, I say, like young people today, um, it's all sound really like old and stickly and boring, but that that still craves that sense of freedom. Because I know you can get Ubers and stuff like that, but when you are sat at that steering wheel and you turn that car on, and there's there's a level of fear for me. There was a level of fear when I got in because you think I can't screw this up because I can't have an accident and I don't want to have an accident, you know, and so it's quite nerve-wracking to start with. But then once you get into the groove, you're like, yeah, and you put your cassette tape in and you're like, yeah, you know, and you get your pink shiny mats, and you're like, yeah. And it's just it was like proper, my first one, proper ethics. I had white blonde hair, I had a white bomber jacket with faux fur trim, it was a white, uh, what was it, a 1.25. Um, no, it wasn't, it was a fresco, El Ridge Fresco was my first one, and it was like a tuba flora, you know, the white tub. It was so it was falling apart, but it was I was proper ethics, and I had my white heels in the passenger seat footwell, so that when I got to places I'd get out and put those on. It was just it was the best, it was the best, you know. You look back now, and I don't think what an idiot, it just makes me smile because at the time I felt like the absolute boss, you know.

Yeah, I guess, I guess that affordability is the thing, isn't it? Well, now with new cars and well, unless your parents are gonna buy your first car, which yeah. Who knows?

You can have a hot wheels, yeah.

If you're lucky.

Um thank you very much, Charlotte, for uh for joining us. I'm gonna wrap it up because um I've got to go back to work, but yeah, I'm gonna have to edit it at some point.

I also sorry, I do have a tendency to waffle and go off on tangents, so I hope.

It's been brilliant, it's been a really good chat, and I've enjoyed obviously hearing the stuff about your yeah, your grandfather's cars, but equally your insight into kind of yeah, what we can do for the future to help kind of the next generation is really interesting. And yeah, that's kind of a topic that we've sort of discussed a number of times on the podcast. So, yeah, really interesting. Yeah, really appreciate you coming on, so thank you very much. Thanks, Charlotte.

No, thank you. I'm sorry if I buckle. And gone off on tangents. Hopefully it's editable.

No, it's it was lovely. It was great.

No, we'll keep in touch. Um, just generally, just keep in touch. Um, and hopefully we can meet in 3D at some point.

Yeah, absolutely.

Take care.

See you later. See you bye. Yeah, that was really good. I really enjoyed that one, John.

Yeah, absolutely. It was uh there's some touching subjects in there, weren't there? Particularly with the the fraud escort and um Charlotte's grandfather.

Yeah, absolutely. It was kind of I guess it was a haven, wasn't it? A sort of a safe place after school. And yeah, regardless of the fact that actually it wasn't an expensive car or anything kind of particularly fancy, it just meant a lot to her because of obviously the association with her grandfather and also yeah, just the fact it represented that's that safety and sort of comfort and security.

Yeah. Um I think the car can be like that for a lot of people, a bit of a safe space. I also sort of remember when I was early into driving, I'd you know, you sort of venture out and you to a shopping centre or something like that, and then I'd sort of get there, walk around the shops and think, I'm actually really not enjoying this. As soon as I'll get back in the car, I'd be quite content and just sort of I guess it was all about the journey, really. But that was in a day when you could just go out and drive just for the love of it because it was affordable.

Yeah, I was gonna say you didn't need a second mortgage for a trip, yeah, trip out. Yeah, um, but yeah, that was yeah, that was really nice. Yeah, obviously, her grandfather meant a lot to her. Um, and then yeah, later on, obviously, we got onto her grandfather on the other side with the MG, and how yeah, she ended up kind of inheriting that, and that sort of sparked this whole sort of love of automotive. She kind of got it, it clicked, yeah, and yeah, being on kind of some road trips, being able to write about that, and that's obviously sort of branched her career out into the automotive space.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, some massive road trips.

Yeah, yeah, amazing just to kind of have that, and also just sort of continue literally a the journey of that vehicle, kind of with a new generation of the family, which I think that's yeah, that's really nice. That I like the fact when you drive an old car that you think, especially if you listen to sort of radio stations like Capital or whatever, where they play the old music, you kind of think actually, once upon a time, someone else was driving down a road, not necessarily this road, but listening to this exact song in this car, and all of a sudden you just sort of jumped back into that just for a second.

Yeah.

And yeah, kind of similar for her, I suppose there'll be moments which will have crossed over, she would have driven that car to a petrol station, potentially the same one that he would have gone to, or down the same road, or listened to a similar piece of music or something, and yeah, it kind of continues, regardless of the fact obviously her grandfather's passed on.

So yeah, it's nice, isn't it?

That it can keep the uh the legacy alive. Yeah, definitely. Um, so yeah, a big big thanks to Charlotte really for joining us and sharing those stories with us. Obviously, people may or may not be aware. We don't tend to kind of do a like a pre-record or anything with these. We have sort of a minimal amount of interaction over email or say DM on social media just to kind of hear people out a little bit, but we're hearing these stories for the first time when we're recording, so yeah, it is nice just to kind of hear those unfold and we're kind of thinking on the fly and trying to work out what the next question is and all of that. There's a lot of podcasts out there who've got researchers and and the rest.

Yeah, we're definitely not we're not that no. Well, it's like you say, it's nice that you know the spontaneity of some of the stories that that have come up from guests, but also it's probably a case of they might not have even spoken about this before ever, you know, some of it, or for a very long time at at least. So yeah, it's nice to watch people sort of uh well the cogs start turning, don't they? And you can see sort of one memory might trigger another and so on so on. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, it's um it's nice to be able to offer that service, so to speak, and just yeah, facilitate that and then yeah, hopefully it's something that they go back to back to their houses or whatever and kind of think about, chat over with partners, friends, relatives, and um yeah, kind of sparks a whole new conversation.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, even you think you know, whoever we have on they like you say, speak to family or friend, and then that person ends up doing the same sort of thing in their head, don't they? Or or they reach out to us and say, I could be quite good on uh on this podcast too. Definitely. So yeah, thank you very much, Charlotte.

Yeah, it was great to hear from him, and um yeah, thank you very much, John. Thank you. Cool, we'll uh wrap it up and roll the credits.

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