Moggies in the Family

My mother in front of the bonnet of the green saloon, around 1977.

We'd had Moggies before of course. My grandparents ran a traveller, and my own family had had two that I remember. The first, a powdery (brush-painted?) white saloon which succumbed to the dreaded snapped trunnion on a sharp bend, and the other, a green '54 split-screen 4-door saloon which my father had modified with twin carbs, special valves and a van exhaust! He told me recently that he has never equaled the journey times he achieved in that little car even with a modern MG, or a Jaguar. He was a musician and traveled all over the country for work in it. He took the passenger seat out to fit in his double bass, and balanced it on my mum's dressing table stool in the footwell. It went like stink and cornered like a roller skate! As a child I once sat on his lap and steered it up the un-made lane in Yorkshire on one of our childhood holidays. We drove from Wimborne to Whitby in it with two adults, three kids and two dogs all shoe-horned in! My dad built a trailer for the luggage.

This car had several little foibles, one of which was a sticking valve. We carried a hammer for unsticking it, and now and again my mother would have to hop out, whip off the rocker cover, and give the offender a quick whack with the hammer to release it. The other problem was a broken accelerator return spring bracket. The fix consisted of a small piece of wood, just the right size and diameter, wedged against the exhaust manifold. The heat of the manifold would periodically burn through the piece of wood, and the engine would suddenly rev uncontrollably until a new piece of wood was inserted in the right spot. The car was stolen once from outside our house in Dorset. The police found it abandoned in Shepton Mallet some 50 odd miles away. The little piece of wood had burned away and the driver had lost heart for the crime. Perhaps the little car had had enough of the night-time excursion.

With this history of and affection for Morris Minors revived by the Old Kent Road sighting my plan went into action. My driving teacher Cheryl was quite unperturbed by the idea, and cheerfully reported sightings of vans and sometimes pick-ups to me every week when we had a lesson.

Myself, my sister and brother in the trailer my dad built, around 1977.

This is Elsie

Myself and Elsie outside Quedgeley Court, St George's Rd Peckham, summer of 1991.

This is the story of my 1971 Morris Minor van, 'Elsie'. Or at least the bit I know about since I bought her in June 1991 from a Mr Dave Burman in Palmers Green for £625. He had bought the van only a few months before in March '91 from an Albert Broadbent who was elderly and had finally given up trying to restore her. I suspect it was a mercy purchase, to save poor Albert from himself. There was a plate on the bulkhead from a garage in Palmers Green which was no longer in existence and I assume this was the garage which sold the van new, so it hadn’t moved very far in its life.

I had scoured Loot (a now extinct London free-ads paper) for months watching adverts for tempting little vans come and go, while I had my driving lessons. Of course, as soon as I passed my test, they all disappeared.

I had first seen a Morris van drive down the Old Kent Road as I stood waiting for a bus outside the launderette, and my eyes were on stalks. I never knew they had made a van! That was it for me, I had to learn to drive and I had to get a van of my own. I had not been particularly interested in learning to drive until that moment, but the sight of that noisy little blue and white blur clinched it.

This van, which finally appeared in Loot after an agonising wait, was 19 years old and originally badged as an Austin. It had an Austin steering wheel, but a Morris bonnet badge (which probably meant a prang to the front at some point in the past). It was blue with a white roof (several different shades of blue actually), and had the fabulous texture of an orange, having been sprayed extremely badly with numerous small cans of paint. The tyres were wizened and bald with unhealthy cracks starting to appear

in the side-walls. The roof gutters were full of filler, and moss. The only positive thing I knew about it was that the chassis was sound, as another prospective buyer had got a mechanic to look at it earlier that week. I had luckily picked up the idea that this would be important. As we went for a test drive I cheerfully asked Mr Burman if it ran on petrol or diesel. I can't think why now, as I knew the answer from seeing my parents buying two-, three- or four-star petrol as a child. It might have been the fact that it sounded rather more like a tractor!

He rather generously said I could have my money back at the end of the week if I changed my mind – he obviously thought I was completely out of my depth. How right he was! But he underestimated my enthusiasm and the happy state of blissful ignorance in which I embarked on this partnership. I loved that van and nothing was going to part me from it if I could help it.

I drove home alone through London having passed my test only about a month before, which was very nerve wracking. I quickly discovered that driving a moggy van is rather like driving in a giant suit of armour, with about the same (non) visibility. One has to acquire a heightened sense of spatial awareness very fast.

Van door plate giving chassis number and weight regs.