An Unconventional Childhood - Travels With My Parents

For a few years after the first foray into the foreign we stayed in England for our family holidays exploring Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, the south west and the south east coasts. Lots of architecture and art, loads of antique and bric-a-brac shops, and people to chat to about the history of places. And then……along came “Ben”!

Da had Ma’s present- the 3litre Bentley but he secretly hankered for a 4.5 litre one. To achieve this end and also to find the money to continue to restore the cottage and grounds, he had applied his interests  to restoring Vintage vehicles using them for a while and then finding a new home for them. One of his restored Rolls Royce’s had been sold to Micky Dolenz of the pop group the Monkees. He restored a 1921 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost wanting to keep it but was disappointed with the performance so sold it with a view to carpeting and re- curtaining the cottage, putting in central heating and seriously restoring a couple of fireplaces. But a friend of his mentioned that another friend had this Bentley to sell to save his marriage. The car had been rebuilt for competition and was a “Hooligan”.

We went to see the “Hooligan “. For Da it was love at first sight. “Ben” became part of our family and is now in his second generation of ownership.

There was one big problem…..”Ben” was a two-seater beetle-back and we were a family of three. No problem. “Ben” still has his original bum, but Da’s first act of ownership was to have a new bum made with an opening in it for a “tail end Charlie” seat installed for me and additional fold away mounts for access to the seat! Being inventive and cost conscious, the rear seat was a recycled mourner’s seat from the Silver Ghost Hearse that had partially bought “Ben”. I can still get into the seat even tho’ I am grown up.  It is still comfy.

Not only did Da make room for me, but he also made me useful on journeys by installing a curved Perspex screen. It kept the wind away and was big enough to have a map open in front of me, so I became family map reader. The raised position helped too. Basically, I was just yelling Right, Left and Straight On to Da and amazingly things didn’t go wrong

So “Ben’s” first adventure was motoring through France, popping into Switzerland and down to the Black Forest area of Germany. This time we were booked out and back on a ferry.

Second problem….. “Ben” had no hood. Solution- the biggest golf umbrella you could buy! If it rained we stopped and put up the umbrella. Da had pre-booked some accommodation but was still relying on finding auberges when dusk fell as we had no idea of what mileage we would be covering in a day. (At this time French roads were very poor and you couldn’t guarantee a daily mileage.)

We had bought a camping stove, kettle and teapot to provide a good cuppa if/when needed and were headed for the smallest walled town in France-it’s called Nozeroy and is quite a bit above sea level. We didn’t need the umbrella, and I got the best tan I’ve ever had. The auberges were more comfortable and the food was lovely. There were lots of encounters with people who were interested in the car and the passengers. Coming into Chambery at dusk one evening we passed a nun on a bicycle who stopped when she saw us parked at an auberge. She said to Da that she thought that “Ben” was an aeroplane!

Some of the roads were a bit scary on the way up to Nozeroy but we got there and parked in front of the Hotel. Next morning we were greeted by a very excited French lady who asked in English was this really a Bentley and were we English. This began a lifelong friendship and as a family we have stayed in touch with Martine and Raoul, a vet, who got Da into going with him to help birth calves after an early breakfast of cheese and wine. Though Nozeroy is a lovely place it was very damp, and Martine and Raoul suffered with arthritic symptoms. They gradually work-hopped through several warmer areas and ended up just outside Marseilles where Raoul and Martine worked as a twosome testing racehorses for drugs also going to Corsica for the races there where they were a very popular couple.

Switzerland came over as an extraordinarily well organised and fearfully tidy country. The Swiss were rather perplexed by “Ben” as were the Germans who thought that Da was German.  I don’t think that either expected to see a child navigator.

In all we covered close on 3500 miles on this adventure and didn’t get wet once.

Recently we took “Ben” back to France for the Dieppe Retro which allows cars of the right vintage from all over. I wasn’t navigating this time as we were in a procession escorted by police vehicles and even breakdown trucks. “Ben” thought poorly of this as he has never broken down on our watch! The procession took in a lot of the D-Day landing sites, some very pretty little towns and villages and an incredible number of stops for aperitifs which the police escort quaffed without concern. Pickled is a good word to describe that adventure, and again we didn’t get wet once.

Over the years we have had lots of adventures with “Ben” who is a much-loved member of our Family. However, the most quirky ones were the earlier ones as people, at least in Britain seem to have got much more used to vintage and classic vehicles. And I don’t get into scrapes anymore (much)…..