STILL DRIVING

Because of early-stage glaucoma - currently held in check - and having reached my 80th year, my case for a driving licence continuation has to go before a DVLA medical panel every three years. And just like the passport office, I guess they're running a little behind schedule at the moment, because my documents were sent off in April while a new licence was not posted back until the middle of July. Anyway, I've got it, and it runs until 2017, by which time I will have had a licence for over 60 years. And just in case you're wondering, I don't drive at night or in heavy traffic areas, and I can comfortably pass all the eyesight tests.
I think I got my first driving licence in 1956, or at least it was in 1956 when I took the driving test. My parents had bought a little Austin - the family's first car - so that I could drive them around after National Service demob from the RAF. It had a top cruising speed of about 30mph, a starting handle, with trafficators (little orange signalling flags) on each side. One problem was that in those days they insisted on the use of hand signals during the driving test, which meant you needed to have the driver's window open. I took my test in Spalding on a rainy day, and ended with shirt sleeves and arm soaked to the skin.
My second car was a beast, a Vauxhall 14, a vast, green, shiny thing as long as a Churchill tank and covered in trendy slicks of chrome, including the monumental bumpers. I recall it was death if you got the chrome scratched or damaged, because rust patches were only five minutes away, and replacements cost what seemed a year's salary. In consequence, most spare time was spent manically cleaning and shining this accursed trim. The rest of the time was spent trying to get the engine started. 
When it went it purred, but every projected journey was prefaced by the remark, '. . . if I can get it started.' No electric starter in those days. Just a crank handle, a choke lever, and an engine with the kick of a mule.
Have enjoyed it all, even though I can't remember the makes of all the cars. And the most fun? Driving a VW Maui motor home in New Zealand, and an antique LandRover (actually, our party had two, one called Rack and the other Ruin) in Norway, north of the Arctic Circle.

ALL PUFFED UP

The spell of beltingly hot weather this summer rekindled recollections of cycling in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Then, many of our local roads in south Lincolnshire were repaired or resurfaced with gravel and hot tar, but if the temperature happened to soar above, say, 25deg, then the tar would melt and produce black puddles on the surface. If you were cycling, then the tar stuck to your tyres and loose gravel and debris stuck to the tar. The result was the constant smell of melted tar in your nostrils, and very, very thick gravel-lined tyres.
It was the very devil to get off, and after every such expedition I had to strip the bike down and take off the wheels, beg or borrow some paraffin and wash the tyres - and quite often the bike chain, too - to get rid of all the muck.
Still it was something to do during the long school holidays. But ever since then, the smell of hot tar or paraffin tends to bring it all back.