MY FIRST car was a 1970 navy blue Morris Minor which I inherited from my mum when I was 17 – I think my dad was working for a subsidiary of Austin Rover and she got his second company car.
Probably the most exciting thing I did in it was take it to the Reading Festival with all my friends in the back. We spent a lot of time decorating the car; we made a stencil of Alternative Tentacles’ logo, a record label that I was into at the time, and put it on the bonnet. We decorated it inside and out.
My best memories of it were driving to the back of the local supermarket to smoke cigarettes on my lunch break from school. My boyfriend at the time had a Mini and the two of us would drive there in convoy. It was five minutes’ walk but two minutes in the car, so if it was raining you and your friends could sit and smoke and listen to music. I spent a bit of money on speakers and a secondary amp.
I only had the car until the end of that school year. I was on the way back from one of those lunchtime cigarette breaks and a woman pulled out and drove into the side of the car, and that was the end of the Moggie. The replacement was a 1966 Triumph Herald. I obviously had a taste for old cars. «
• Catherine Hardy is a restaurateur and co-founder of the Left Bank, the Two Figs and the Bungo in Glasgow. www.theleftbank.co.uk, www.thetwofigs.co.uk, www.thebungo.co.uk.
