Throw Back Thursday – Learning to Drive
How did you learn to drive a car? Did your dad teach you? Or maybe you mum? Did you just go straight into lessons ? My brother bought a rover metro when he was a teenager for 40 pounds; it was an old car but worked perfectly fine. As we lived in the countryside we were surrounded by fields, as typical Ireland (Northern Ireland) everyone knows everyone, so of course my daddy knew all the farmers who owned the land surrounding our house. My brother and I would take the rover metro into the fields once the grass had been cut and have a great time spinning around doing hand brake turns! In all honesty I can’t remember what age I was, but I wasn’t able to steer the car, work the pedals and the gears all at once. I was a teenager but I can’t remember exactly what age, I don’t believe dad was sick at this point, so I must have been younger than 14. My brother and I would set off into the fields, I could steer the car and work the pedals and my bother would do the gears, telling me when to clutch. Sadly I was the death of the rover metro, we were out one day spinning about and I managed to forget to turn the corner at the end of the field, this resulted in me ditching the rover metro. My brother got out of the car and I climbed out the passenger door, we walked across the field and told daddy what happened. He didn’t shout, he didn’t say anything, he just laughed and got into the digger and set off across the field to pull the car from the hedge. An old wives tale is that if you crack an egg into the radiator of a car it will seal any holes, I had put a hole in the radiator of the car, so daddy went into the fridge and got an egg and solved that problem.
We spent many years wrecking around the fields in my brothers car, we were sensible and careful, and never got hurt. It was harmless fun. When I was 17 and it was time to actually learn to drive a car on the road, legally daddy was sick and couldnt teach me. My first car was a Peugeot 106, a very small banger of a car!! I loved it!! It was blue and a good friend of mine had the exact same car! When my car was due to go through MOT, which is a test the government make you do each year to ensure your car is legal on the road ,I had a bald tyre so my mum went home and got my friend to come over and stole his tyre. Of course I went and got a new tyre ASAP but at that moment and time I needed a tyre! My friend done the same thing, a belt went on his car and until he could get into town and buy one he took it off my car, as at this time I wasn’t driving! When it came time to but my first car my dad wasn’t around or able to help me with this, I remember sitting online looking at cars and I found a blue Peugeot 106 only a few miles from my house. I went to work so angry at mum because she was shooting the idea down, making excuses for why we couldn’t go look at it. When I got home from work and went to my room, there was a set of car keys sitting on my dresser, the key chain read “Ashley Keys”, my brother was standing in the garage with a friend of ours and my new (second hand) car. Mum and Ryan went and bought me the car, I had the savings to pay for it and the money would be sorted later, but they went and got me my first car!
I will always remember how I learnt to drive, and getting my first car! Which I absolutely loved and thought I was so cool, going cruising, playing loud music, and sitting so low and far back I don’t actually know how I saw anything!! Thank you to my family for being there when my daddy couldn’t!
Merry Christmas