Learning To Drive
Learning To Drive
A local driving school in Beverley was advertising a special rate for airmen to take driving lessons and I decided to take advantage of this. I think the cost was either 10 shillings or fifteen shillings which is 50p or 75p nowadays.

I arrived for my first driving lesson at the East Yorkshire School of Motoring on a Saturday and we took off in a Standard 8 with dual controls. The instructor then asked me if I minded if we took a different route from normal. Not knowing what the normal route was, I said OK. So we drove into the countryside and arrived a large house. He then explained that he was having an affair with another woman but his car would not start this morning so he had to get a taxi into Beverley. His girlfriend came out in her dressing gown and got into the other car while he attached a towline to the driving school car. He towed the other car until it started then disconnected the two cars and she drove off. We then continued with the driving lesson.

I took about ten lessons then applied for my driving test. The test was through Hull and seemed to be at the busiest part of the day going by the amount of traffic on the roads. I was quite nervous and the Standard 8 seemed to needing a service. You never knew what it was going to do when you pressed the accelerator, it either jumped forward or suffered a delayed reaction. Anyway things went from bad to worse and I knew I had failed, so I said to the examiner, “I don’t know about you but I’ve had enough,” and turned round and made my way back to the centre.

The driving instructor asked what had happened and I told him I was just too nervous. Just about this time the Suez crisis, when Egypt seized control of the Suez Canal, took place and there was a petrol shortage in Britain. All driving tests were suspended from November 1956-April 1957 and anyone who had a provisional driving licence was allowed to drive without having an experienced driver accompanying them. Our family had just bought a car and I was able to drive it about on my own when I was home on leave. When the tests were resumed, I applied for another test in Falkirk and this time I passed easily. Towards the end of my service I took the car back to camp with me so that I could take some of my belongings home. I kept it on camp for a week but had to apply for permission to do so then drove back on the Friday evening after work. Someone else was going home to Central Scotland but he usually thumbed lifts and it sometimes took him all night to get home. I offered to take him home if he shared the petrol costs with me, this was about 10 shillings. He refused but asked me to look out for him on the road. I said I would and would give him a wave as I passed !
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