Dan Norris

dannorris

My road trip to the past, with added vowels…

Everyone’s car life starts somewhere. If I think back, I can remember where I think mine started – although my mum says I could identify visitors from the noise their cars made when they arrived before I could even walk. But in my mind my first real car adventures began in Wales. My grandfather owned a remote cottage – and by remote, I mean remote even by Welsh standards – somewhere inland from Colwyn Bay. He had goats and chickens and stone outbuildings and all the trappings of la dolce vita 1970s style, and for a six-yearold boy, it was heaven. From the main road – although that might give slightly the wrong impression as it was in reality a long cart track leading down into the valley - as we approached for each visit, my heart would beat a little faster, I’d start to fidget, until my parents could bear no more and let me out of the car. Off I’d run, leaping over the stiles and five bar gates (there were several that needed opening as you descended the track) until as I rounded the final curve, I could see what I’d been dreaming about on the arduous, dull, 10- hour journey in our Renault 6. Boy, was it worth it.

There, in the front yard, resplendent on four neat piles of bricks and looking just as beautiful as I remembered from last time, sat the object of my desires – a 1958 Ford Anglia. I’d already been planning my road trips, making lists of supplies, trying to persuade my long-suffering parents to let me out of the household chores, and now the moment had arrived. The only difficulty would be the usual running the gauntlet from the main house, out to the car. Somewhere out there, doubtless hiding behind the old privy, ready to pounce, would be my nemesis - a grumpy, gnarly, stinky and always hungry billy goat called Bill. We’d had run-ins before, and he’d always won – one time knocking me to the ground and making me cry – but I wasn’t going to let anything stand between me and my long-awaited road trip adventure. Gathering up my Shippam’s crab paste sandwiches, Penguin bar and thermos of orange squash (perfect road trip fare) I reluctantly planted the obligatory kiss on the squishy puckered-up face of my grandmother, and like the guys at the start of the old-style Le Mans race, I was gone (although those poor chaps didn’t have Shippam’s).

I travelled many, many miles in that old Ford Anglia, journeys deep into my imaginary vision of what the world would look like when I grew up and was finally allowed to do what I really wanted to do in life – drive cars. I still remember that distinctive semi-sweet smell of the plastic trims, the jewel-like ruby red of the central horn button in the middle of that wonderful ivory white steering wheel. The grown-ups must have thought me very odd, ‘he’s still out there you know, that’s four hours now. What is he doing in there? It’s not right, you know…’. I think the general assumption was that I’d grow out of it, so it was alright.

Of course, as it turns out, I didn’t grow out of it, and it wasn’t alright. I’d caught a bug that would last a lifetime. Luckily, at Munich Legends I’ve met many fellow sufferers – I hear regular stories of how one journey in a friend’s uncle’s neighbour’s M635CSi to football practice sparked a lifelong desire to own an E24, or of the mental snapshot taken in 1978 from the back of the family Maxi, being overtaken by a 2002 Turbo, leading to a collection of 25 cars (and a grumpy wife, he says). So, I ended up owning a BMW garage, hanging out with other car nuts as a day job and marrying a lady who owns a business specialising in supercar road trips, thus spending a good portion of every year exploring mountain passes and unknown European backroads on Colcorsa reccies, or shrieking round the Ashdown Forest in various M cars. So, not much has changed since I was six years old.

One day I decided to go on a road trip I’d been going on about four years – a very special trip to the past (or Wales, as it’s known locally). Sara managed to procure a Merc SL63 Roadster press car from the kind folk over at Mercedes-Benz GB, the perfect grand touring power waft – except it was from the wrong town. Undaunted we set off on my merry trip down memory lane, stopping for lunch in a perfect Cotswolds pub (except they didn’t do crab paste sandwiches) and enjoying hours of clogged A roads winding painfully through the Black Country.

As any visitor will soon realise, Wales is the land that vowels forgot. However, travelling with a Finnish girl – even one whose mother tongue is Swedish – I soon found out why Wales is possibly the perfect destination for a Finn. In fact, I’m thinking of starting a twin town organisation for the two countries. Because Finland is a land that has way, way too many vowels. Take the Finnish word hääyöaie, meaning

wedding night intention - a phrase in daily use, with a serious surplus of vowels. Now let’s look at the Welsh word for producer – cynhyrchydd. It seems obvious to me that when languages were being invented, somebody got the allocations wrong. Nonetheless, we struggled on - vowel-less, but happy.

We drove deep into the countryside - modern satnav took away the mystery of discovery - so barring some sheep encounters and some heavy rain we drove straight there, arriving in front of my grandad’s gate just before lunch, as the clouds parted and the sun came out, soaking the landscape in a calm, misty light. I wandered down the track, which was as long and rutted as I remembered, through the five bar gates, round the curve and across the final cattle grid, the house calling to me from somewhere in the past.

And there it was – in a way, where it all began. Gone was the old Anglia – some townies had bought the place and were busy making a gym in one of the outbuildings – but the spirit of the place was still intact. I breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow, I felt reassured that not everything in the world changes beyond recognition, that some memories are safe. I have a picture of me and (now) my wife, standing in front of the sign looking silly. Another memory safe.

And maybe that’s what it’s all about, this crazy love we have for cars. We’re trying to keep the memories safe, in a world where everything seems subject to change. These cars are just lumps of old metal to some – like an old Ford Anglia parked on bricks in the yard - but for us they’re somehow an anchor to our past. And it may seem silly to some, but that sounds just fine to me.