The first car I ever owned was a 1953 Ford Prefect. If you want to know what it looked like, Google E493A. Like many of its brothers and sisters, mine was grey. It was certainly not a great looker. But it was remarkably reliable. And it had a top speed of about 65 mph. Although to reach that dizzying velocity, it helped to be going downhill.
Henry (I think it was my mother who dubbed the car Henry) had a side-valve engine. To this day, I'm not sure what a side-valve engine is; but Henry had one. And it had a three-speed gearbox. But the best thing about Henry -- certainly on the night that I'm thinking of -- was that it had a bench front seat.
Chrissy had gone to high school with my sister. But by the time that I met Chrissy she was studying at Teachers' Training College.
Chrissy and I got talking while we were standing next to each other, watching a game of rugby between a Teachers College team and Gloucester-London. As I recall, the Teacher's team was getting well and truly thumped. 'Oh well,' Chrissy said, 'my second team is doing OK.' And that's when we discovered that we were both from the Cotswolds, albeit it now living in London. One thing led to another, and we agreed to go and see an exhibition of paintings by Peter Lime on the following weekend.