First Love
Some magical reason made me sit on the top deck that day, in fact, had it not been for my elevated position, I might well have passed her by.
Most of us remember the feeling. That certain “walking on air” that we experience moments after we fall in love. For me it happened on a chilly spring morning as the bus I was travelling on slowed to a stop for a passenger to alight.
Some magical reason made me sit on the top deck that day, in fact, had it not been for my elevated position, I might well have passed her by.
Just one glance and I knew without doubt she was the one for me. Sleek as a kitten, my heart did a double flip, I’d never rest until I made her mine. My beloved rested in a bed of nettles in the back of Honest Jim Figg’s Car Lot at the top end of Tottenham Court Road. Chalked across her angled windscreen was a price I knew I could afford – “Fifty quid!”
That’s how it all started. For days after, heart pounding, and tormented beyond all reason, I gazed like a lovesick schoolboy at the object of my desire. A month went by, and then another. Finally, unable to contain myself any longer, I threw caution to the wind, got off the bus, and stood at the threshold of Honest Jim Figg’s establishment.
Boldly I hammered on the wooden gate outside his premises, and after a few moments it drew slowly to one side.
Dressed in a dark suit, celluloid collar and bowler hat, the gentleman before me communicated through the lighted cigarette that was somehow stuck to his lower lip.
“Figg’s the name,” he spluttered, raising his bowler hat a fraction, “How can I help you?”
“That black Ford sedan in your yard,” I began, feeling a tingle run down my spine.
Mr. Figg’s permanent appendage bobbed as he enthused over my choice. I swear he never took the cigarette from his mouth.
“Bargain,” he wheezed. “Absolute bloody bargain, one owner, old gel in her 60s!”
It was early April, and the frost still clung to the knee-high grass as Jim Figg led the way to the car leaving a trail of vaporised cigarette smoke in his wake. “Here we are lad, ain’t she a beauty?”
The old girl was a lot larger than I imagined. It was humpty backed too, with enormous bench-type seats across the whole width of the car. Two small windows with roll-up blinds were set at the rear. A feature I thought, ideal for a spot of snogging, should the occasion ever arise.
Peering inside, the front and rear were finished in a fawn-coloured velvet, and the faded carpet sported several healthy looking toadstools, all sprouting merrily through the dirt. A pang of anguish flooded over me, and Mr Figg saw the look of bitter disappointed on my face.
A born salesman, Jim appeased my anguished heart. “She needs a bit of cleaning up lad, won’t take a minute… You just look at this engine!” Twisting the motive on the bonnet to one side, the engine compartment yawned open.
I peeked inside, half expecting a covey of partridges to fly out, but I was pleasantly surprised. That massive V8 Engine appeared to be in pretty good nick! “Can we start her?” I enquired.
Jim Figg’s face dropped a mile. “You got the money?” he growled. “Err… No, but I can get it tomorrow.” I said, not realising that it would be Sunday.
Naturally, I sweated blood all that Sabbath, fearing that my darling Tin Lizzie might be sold to a complete stranger. I should have known better!
With 50 pounds in fivers burning a hole in my pocket, I returned to Jim Figg and my heart’s desire the following day.
Working as a team, I carried the battery, while Jim carried a beer bottle, half filled with petrol. Enough we thought to prime the carburettor, and get the car started.
We did have a certain amount of trouble starting her. Figg, however, wasn’t to be outwitted, and went back to his establishment twice for more petrol, and I suspect, a quick nip of something a little stronger. Third time was lucky! With a roar that equalled a Sherman tank, the engine sprang to life.
“Ah, what joy,” I thought, for it was music to my ears. “Ain’t she a beauty?” shouted Figg above the clatter of countless misguided tappets and a hole in the silencer box. I nodded my approval as the float chamber of the carburettor ran out of fuel, all two pints’ worth, and the engine died.
Parting with my money without so much as a test drive, I became the proud owner of my first motor vehicle and half a punnet of toadstools.
They didn’t call him Honest Jim Figg for nothing.
I found the original handbook of the car in the glove compartment, Ford V8 Model 78 it was, and I drove my old Mom to the coast most Sundays for two consecutive years. The silver flower vase set centrally between the divided windscreen was never devoid of flowers, and the sumptuous bench seat in the back afforded me the kind of youthful pleasure that eventually got me hooked and married. First love? How could I possibly forget it?
