Women's NATION - Kenya
The Friday Commentry
By Eve Hall, 1966
I have often wanted to write a dirge on "cars I have known" - or more specifically, on one car. Araminta a little green Austin who was born in 1935, and died an ignoble death at the age of 17.
She was beautiful in her prime. Square as a little box, and just as comfortable. She embarassed our relatives, annoyed and frightened our friends, and invariably made us late for any appointment.
She was also, unhesitatingly, not to be relied on; but she rolled down hills wonderfully - except for the time a fool mechanic forgot to tighten the screws on one of her wheels.
She limped painfully down a very steep hill, with her family sitting inside her, unconscious of impending disaster.We didn't notice the extra wobble from the everyday ones, but it did seem that passing motorists looked at us with more than usual horror. But with a fine instinct of self preservation, we turned into a garage, just as the rear left wheel gave an awful little crunch and came off.
At the age of 15, she grew a little eccentric. When she stalled in heavy traffic, she refused to move until we leaped out, opened her bonnet and jiggled her terminals. Her petrol guage refused to indicate, and we had to dip a stick into her tank to check. If we forgot she never failed to make us pay the price for our neglect - and she usually chose a spot far from any petrol dump to give her last despairing and accusing gurgle.
But she was essentially an uncomplicated soul. To start her, all you needed was a hairpin to switch her engine on, and a brisk run up and down the hill with one man at the wheel and two at the mast. Then, she throbbed and purred, and was ready to go anywhere, if it wasn't too steep.
Strangers found the gusts of fumes from her gearbox disconcerting. We thought it gave Araminta a homely touch - like her corduroy unholstered seats and the windscreen wipers that had to be worked by hand.
As she grew older she shed her refinements. As we went over a bump, one faithful day, her back window fell out. From that day passengers in the back seat had to wear a raincoat over their heads or crouch under an umbrella in wet weather. Her front passenger seat collapsed and had to be propped up by an orange crate. The cap on her petrol tank had to be replaced by a cloth.
Traffic police started demanding proof of road-worthiness - but they never brought themselves to write out a summons. They were doubled up with laughter and couldn't reach the pens in their breast pockets.
Gradually, her disintegration led to her final convulsion. "Her wiring's wrong." said the garage hand. "It'll cost you £100 to have her repaired. I'll give you £5 for her - but it will cost you £10 to have her towed to the garage."
He kicked the tyres unfeelingly.
With guilt written all over our faces, and heavy hearts, we abandoned her in her hour of need. Slowley, she rotted in a slummy side street and was raped of her wheels, her seats, her windows and her handles. She was a monument to our uneasy conscience - and we breathed a sigh of relief when we saw, one rainy day, that she'd been taken away to the city dump.
Life is so much less exciting now. We don't have to walk for miles carrying gallon tins of petrol. We don't make a spectacle of ourselves by holding up double-decker buses during peak-hour traffic. We dn't clatter as we go over a bump - and we feel so much less daring as we glide in our luxurious VW.
We're no longer pioneers behind the wheel of our horseless carriage - we're just car drivers.
*****
Some pictures of the heroic rebuild of an Austin 10 by an enthusiast.
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