An Obsession Starts

Mr Robbins put down the phone, he was the chief officer at a Birmingham ambulance station, he donned his reflective jacket and jumped in his car on his way to a major incident on the nearby M6, blue light on, siren on, two-way radio crackles into life with an update from the control room. 

He is having trouble getting through the traffic, no one was taking any notice of his emergency vehicle which left him wondering why? He eventually arrived on scene, played his part in the emergency and returned to the station, after chatting with the station officer they came to the decision that the Royal Blue 1200 Herald saloon wasn’t really up to the job! My Hillman Minx (Peggy Sue) was slowly grinding to a halt, once in the middle lane of the Infamous Spaghetti Junction. I was a fresh face 20 year old rookie ambulanceman, desperately needing reliable transport to get to start early and late shifts, I saw the Herald, fell in love with its shape and shiny dark blue paint work. A loan from my father in law and for £275 cash money I was the new owner VMF439G. 

I loved driving it (better when I worked out where to put my size 12 feet!) it felt quite sporty, I began to learn how he (not she) ticked, I had already had experience of sorting out previous Moggies, A30 and 1958 Hillman. It was mostly reliable, he carried me to work and back, took me to Cornwall on honeymoon. 

Where two motoring incidents nearly put paid to the honeymoon, and in one case nearly put paid to us and the car too. The first incident was on the A38, the Allen Valley in Cornwall, a Lotus Elan was tailgating us when an Austin Princess decided to do an emergency stop and a hard left, I hit my brakes, looked in the mirror, saw the driver of the Lotus chatting face to face with his wife, “Brace yourself” I shouted to my wife, the Lotus rammed us and pushed us up the road. I got out of the car absolutely furious, looked at the back of the herald thought did he hit me? Then I looked at the front of the Lotus and thought yes he did, fibreglass everywhere, the driver about 5ft 2in confronted with 6ft 4in 20 stone angry man, shouted “it was my fault, my fault” I mean he bent my exhaust pipe. 

Then somewhere else in Cornwall, having a friendly race with a local man I was travelling at speed down a dead straight steep hill with high banks either side when a cow, jumped over a wire fence and down a 10ft bank, new brakes and tyres fitted before the honeymoon trip saved the day, oh yes the cow staggered backwards about 2 metres which really saved the day.