GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 89) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDE 0603

Here we reach a slightly significant moment in this unfolding crazy-paving structured saga of ours because this picture features pretty much the only time we get a "proper" look at my Grandfather's dark green two-door Volvo (I can never confirm the model it was), the one after the Rovers, and car I most remember him having when I was a child, and the last car he ever owned, despite him wittering on for years about wanting a (non-specific) BMW...

Neither of my Grandparents had much time for seat belts, I seem to recall, and so they seldom used the blue lap-straps that were available, and with my sister and my parents in the back as we were driven home from our Sunday visits, the under ten-year-old version of me used to have to sit on my Grandmother's lap for the duration of the journey.

Health and Safety would have a field-day about that nowadays, of course, but mostly I remember her charm bracelet jangling, and me trying to get a grip on her fur coat, as she reached for the bracing handle on the dashboard whenever we stopped suddenly or made a sharp turn.

There was much talk in the 1970s of the outrageous inflation and what it was doing to petrol prices, (prices that might seem shockingly cheap nowadays I suppose), and I vaguely remember some talk of how "expensive to run" a "gas-guzzler" like this "extremely heavy" car was getting.

Strangely enough, such cars are considered "classics" now and are highly sought-after, but we were not to know that when my Grandmother sold it on some time after my Grandfather died. I was only sixteen and wouldn't have a Driving Licence for at least another year when that happened, and I can't quite remember why it wasn't offered to my sister either, because I'm pretty sure she was driving by then.

Mysteries... mysteries... All is mystery...