What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Malcolm Parker]

I learned to drive on my Mother's Renault 4, a white one with a full length sun-roof.  On the morning of my driving test, a cold foggy winters day, it wouldn't start so I took the test in my Fathers R4.  This was a newer car and whilst it had the same dashboard push/pull gear lever, the position of the gears was totally different to those on my Mothers car.   The gear lever was spring loaded with, if I remember correctly, 2nd and 3rd gears on the same axis, so if you let it do its own thing you couldn't go far wrong.   I must have done something right as I passed.    I think that was the only time the car wouldn't start in many years of ownership.   The handbrake under the dash was a fearsome device which was always referred to as 'Arkwright's till' after the Open All Hours programme.   To release the handbrake you only had to touch it and it would fly back under strong spring pressure with a tremendous crash.