Today

So there we were, on a roundabout on the A36 Warminster bypass, broken down in a Rolls Royce Silver Spirit. The car's not paying its way in Silver Service, so Paul had bunged it on eBay. We had a visit to Sussex planned. "Let's give it one last run," pleaded Paul. "Up to you," says I, "It's your petrol bill." So we set off to Sussex.

Had a lovely weekend, I sang the Verdi Requiem in Alfriston, Paul visited various folks and we went over to Arundel Terrace to look at progress on the flat.

Set off home - I had a business commitment in Bath at 7.30 - we were in good time. As Paul pulled away from the roundabout, hideous graunchings occurred and the beast refused to move away from a compromising position halfway across the roundabout in the outside lane. How the passers-by must have laughed. When they weren't cursing, that is, because we were blocking their visibility.

Paul worked out that it was probably the 1/2 shaft, phoned the AA, asked our regular garage if we could dump the car there, I called for a taxi (thank God Vodafone for the mobile phone) so that I could get home and then off out to my meeting.

In My Day

Broken down cars - where do I start? Well, back in 1972, we were running an old 1960 Humber Hawk. This car, which was a poorly sprayed cream colour, had been known to be used in criminal activities before we bought it.

From the first, it had a whining back axle. I remember drives taken home late from Eastbourne back to Brighton through the silent Peachaven hearing the regular "whop, whop" of the axle. It could be quite reassuring.

In the Summer of 1972 we decided to have a holiday in Exmoor. I'd been longing to show my favourite place to Paul, so we booked B&B at Shilstone Farm near Brendon, deposited the cats at my brothers and set off. I was extremely pregnant with Lizzie.

We arrived safely, if rather late and tired, at Shilstone. In the following days we explored the beautiful Exmoor countryside. We quickly discovered a peculiarity of the Humber - it really didn't take to 1 in 4 hills. I think we chickened out altogether on Porlock and used the Toll road.

Several times we had to try again and take a run at a hill. A Hunter's Inn we just couldn't do it at all. I scanned the map and told Paul that every way out of the valley involved a 1 in 4. Only one thing for it; as the lowest gear was reverse....... Yes, we went up the hill backwards. Remembering that this was Summertime so there were plenty of tourist about......

We'd found a nice little restaurant in Porlock and several evenings had eaten there. Towards the end of our stay we decided to have a last meal there. So off we went. Suddenly Paul said that he was losing power. He turned the car round to try to get us back home, but no good. The car died beside a little farm about 3 miles from Shilstone. We pushed it into the farmyard, scaring the hens. The farmers were extremely sweet about our dumping a car on their land - well, I was very huge and we must have looked so desperate and poverty-stricken.

We walked back to Shilstone and eventually, with the kindest of help from our hosts, took the bus back home from Lynton.

Later that Summer we hired a car and went to arrange for the Humber to be dumped legally.

At least we hadn't already sold the Rolls Royce on eBay