I had no formal driving lessons when I learnt to drive in the mid sixties.
I bought a 1936 Morris 8 for £20 (later sold for £17 10s 6d); my pal had passed his driving test so we just went out driving in the evenings. It was decided that I needed more experience of traffic so we drove into central London and did multiple laps of Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch.
On arriving at the test centre in Sidcup the examiner asked “Which is your vehicle?”. On pointing to the Morris, tucked into a corner, his reaction was: “Ooh, an old 8. Come on!” I knew I was on to a good thing from that moment on.
Off on the test I started waving my arms about every time we went round a corner. “Does this vehicle have indicators?” he asked.
“Errr, yes. Semaphore ones” I didn't like to tell him that the nearside indicator required the assistance of the passenger. You needed to thump the 'B' pillar to unstick the semaphore arm when going round left hand corners.
Like others I needed to double declutch to get into first gear.
I managed to pass , the only comment was that I didn't need to use the handbrake quite so often. I had understood that if the wheels stopped then the handbrake had to come on. In slow moving traffic I had been stopping, putting on the handbrake, then immediately into first and away.
The examiner's parting words were “What are you going to buy now, an E Type Jag?”
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