We used to go into the Forestry areas regularly to “borrow” wood for the fire! We never took logs from piles, but instead took the bits that the Forestry Commission didn’t want. The wood was pine, so it burnt fast and hot, so we had to use coal as well.
We would drive up into the forests, with the dogs. We went wood hunting in all weathers, but made a dog walk out of it as well. From the age of about 12, our outings became driving lessons as well. Because the forests were empty at the weekends, and had extremely well maintained dirt roads, it was a perfect place to learn the basics of driving. Within just a few weeks, I was driving quite happily (albeit only up to 3rd gear!) through the Forestry Commission forests.
When I got to 17 (UK legal driving age), and started driving lessons I could already drive, but had never had experience on actual roads. So the basics could be skipped. My mum had actually been a driving instructor when I was a baby, so what I had learnt was the right and proper way to drive. All I needed lessons for was for confidence, and to learn the manoeuvres that would enable me to pass my test. My mum insisted that I learnt to drive in Dumfries, rather than our more local town of Castle Douglas, as it was a bigger town and had more than one zebra crossing and set of traffic lights! Castle Douglas is a pretty basic town!
I had lessons on and off for just over a year – depending on whether we could afford the lessons or not! Every day though, I drove into Dumfries where I went to school, and my dad worked. I got loads of practice.
I passed my test not long after I was 18, and got my first car a few months after that, thanks to some money left to me by an aunt. It was a banger, but I firmly believe that everyone’s first car should be a banger, because everyone knackers their first car, and I was not different!
That’s for another post though I think. Cars I have owned!
What about you? What age did you start driving and what was your first car?
NB. Photographs Not My Own Work
1 comments:
My father taught me how to drive on country roads in the Mourne Mountains (Ireland) when I was about 14. It was in the days when there were very few cars in that area.
When I was 16, I spent all my savings from a part-time job to but an Isetta 300 bubble car - a 3-wheeler which i could drive on my own legally.
When I became 17, I was already pretty experienced and passed my driving test on the 1st go. Soon afterwards, I got a 4-wheel car. I still miss the bubble car!
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