(1) Never to buy brand new because they always seemed to have faults - especially the 'Friday afternoon' ones.
(2) To buy one between twelve and eighteen months old because by then all the faults would have been discovered and put right.
(3) To change it after three years.

This policy seemed to work out and I was able to improve on the standard of car at every exchange over the next thirty years.

The only brand new car I ever bought was about three years before I was due to retire. It was a blue Triumph for Marjorie to replace a succession of good 'bangers' which she used for shopping and to potter around the Town. These had given little trouble, and included the psychedelic 'Flower Power' Ford Popular which Malcolm had got for her in Ipswich, I think for less than £50. The idea was that when I retired we would only need one car and the Triumph would have been used very little. My business car could be sold off.

In the event it worked the other way round. I was never comfortable in its driving seat which wasn't wide enough across my back, and in any event by then I had a little-used Sierra Automatic which was more suitable for both of us even though it used more petrol. We didn't reckon to be driving a very heavy mileage. So we sold the Triumph to a school teacher two doors up the road, and she had it for several years. Every time it passed our front window Marjorie would give a little sigh and say "I hope she's treating my car properly."

I broke my Rule 3 when I bought a Humber Sceptre, a high performance semi-sports saloon with overdrive and therefore a low petrol consumption. It never let me down over seven years, and I drove it for 140,000 miles. It only had four new tyres in all that time, one of which was due to a gash in the sidewall, had a respray and a new engine with clutch. Remembering this car reminds me of Douglas d'Cruz, Eastern Gas Board Secretary.

Duggie was short, stoutish, and of Mediterranean appearance, which was only natural since his parents were both Portuguese, although he himself was born in England. He was an 'Oxbridge' graduate, highly intelligent, cultured, and all in all a most superior person, very much the 'English Gentleman', absolutely charming, good-mannered and difficult to upset. One of his jobs was to administer the private car mileage scheme. He often sat at my table in the Higher Managers Dining Room, and one day he said to me "You seem to be keeping your car longer than most people." So I told him my reasons and that I was very happy with it, I would recommend it to anyone.

Not long after that conversation a brand new white Humber Sceptre appeared in his parking slot, about two spaces from mine. For a couple of weeks he was very happy with it, but one lunchtime he said "I've had a spot of bother with it, so I took it up to the main Humber Showroom in Piccadilly where I bought it and complained." They said "Take it round to the workshop at the back and they'll put it right in a day or so." "That's not good enough, I want it fixed today. You drive it round - it's parked outside your front door in Piccadilly in a non-parking zone. I'm going to my Club for lunch and I expect it to be put right when I get back." "What did they say to that, Duggie?" "I didn't wait to hear and went off to lunch. It was ready when I came back, as I expected. After all, I knew they wouldn't want a little fat Wog dancing up and down in front of all their overseas clients!" There was more to Duggie than met the eye.

Anyone living in the Mediterranean or Asia is known to a British soldier or sailor as a 'Wog'. The Army camps and bases used to employ civilian labourers who wore shirts with W.O.G.S. stencilled on the back. It stands for 'Working on Government Service,' and was variously interpreted as 'Wily Oriental Gentleman' or 'Wavell's Oriental Gentleman.' General Wavell commanded the British Eighth Army before Monty took it over. Going out in the evening to an Italian family's house was known as 'Wogging'.

Duggie never married, but lived with his rich, autocratic mother and did as he was told. One day one of the Sales Managers at our dining table was talking about a new gas refrigerator about to come on to the market. It had a deep freeze compartment at the top, a new feature to compete with the electric ones that had come out the year before. Duggie expressed great interest. His Mother's birthday was coming up and he thought it would be an ideal present for her. He had a good look at the leaflet. "No, it won't do, the freezer compartment isn't big enough. We'll never get a sixteen pound salmon in it." "Look, Duggie, this is meant for a normal family. Nobody buys a whole salmon that size." "Whatever are you talking about? My mother and I are perfectly normal. Surely people don't buy small pieces of fish at a time?"

Gas refrigerators were invented over one hundred years ago and for much of that time were able to compete with the domestic electric models. In fact, Electrolux at Luton made both in exactly the same capacities, and you could only tell the difference by looking at the top where there was a small gas flue cap about the size of a bottle top. They cost about the same, were quieter, not having a compressor didn't interfere with radio reception or television, and cost about the same to run. Before World War 2 Tottenham Gas Company rented out the smallest size for about sixpence a week (2.1/2p), and connected the gas supply from before the meter because the gas used was only equivalent to a pilot light and couldn't be recorded. There was a larger one, about ten cubic feet capacity, but its gas had to go through the meter.

Cold rooms as big as a large sitting room could be gas fired, and were used by butchers, restaurants and the like. In the early 1940's there was an American film about the inventor, who may have been Edison or someone similar, his part being played by Spencer Tracy. In England the factory which specialised in making and installing these large cold rooms was Richard Garrett Engineering Works of Leiston, Suffolk, which I mentioned elsewhere.

Back to motor cars. The final two letters of our local car registration at Ipswich were 'BJ'. All the American servicemen at the nearby Air Bases used to bring their cars over from the States free of charge. They could get a reasonable allowance of gasoline from the Base pumps at American prices, but all the extra had to be bought from the Town pumps at British prices, about three or four times higher. They could only get about fourteen miles to the gallon out of their 'Gas Guzzlers' and would very soon trade them in for a small British secondhand car, so there were a lot of British lads driving around in them impressing their girl friends. When the registration year reached 'LBJ' the Yanks bought new British cars to get that particular set of letters, because the President was Lyndon Baines Johnson and the current patriotic 'in phrase' was "Hey, Hey, all the way with LBJ."