The Morris Minor

The Family Car

I saw a video on twitter that sparked a major memory of something minor (that's a clue!) in my childhood.

The video was from a 1970's television broadcast of a story about Christmas tree theft in Ireland (seemingly this was a big thing at the time(!), but don't worry the Gardai in Rathfarnham were on the case). In any case the thief in the piece of film hopped over a wall in to a forest, and cut down a tree and threw it back over the wall. He then proceeded to shove the tree in to his car and drive away.

So you might wonder what was the memory that was sparked by that particular piece of film....and before you say it, I can assure you that my parents always bought their tree from the local shop!

Well the car that the Christmas tree thief made his get away in was a Morris Minor and when I saw it I was taken right back to the 1980's when we had an old black Morris Minor with what I remember were wine coloured leather seats.

Crank it up

One of the things that I remember about the car was that when it wouldn't start, my Dad would put some type of crank in the front of the car and would get it going that way - yes it was of that vintage!!

So after recalling about the crank I went looking for a video and I found this one below which shows a "cold start". The car in the video seems very similar to the one that we had and brings me right back to my childhood, sitting in the car shivering on cold Winter days while Dad cranked the car.......and then we waited for it to warm up so it would drive......while we got later and later for school!

The end of the Morris

What I also remember about this car was its eventually demise.

After doing the weekly shop in Superquinn, Blanchardstown we left the car park to go out on the main road. There was a slight hill down to the roadway, and half way down the hill the axel on the car broke. The car dropped on the side where the wheel was no longer working and we kind of skidded down on to the main road with sparks flying! All very dramatic.

I can't remember the specifics of how we got home but I think Dad parked up the car and when we got home he called a friend who owned a mechanics garage close by and arranged to have it taken up to there. Unfortunately the economics didn't work out on the repair so the car was disposed of and that was the end of the Morris Minor. 

I think there are still some photos of the car floating around in albums at home. It looked great pictured in front of my parent's 1930's house.

At the time that it was our family car I think I felt self conscious in it (I was about 10 I think) and would have preferred to have had a modern car but now I look back fondly on the old Morris Minor.