Expletive deleted.

In case you might think that I have led a blameless life, let me quote from a Hampshire newspaper cutting I dug out recently. It reads “when William Boddy, 29, journalist, Was driving his motor car last evening PC X stopped him as he had no rear lighting. Mr Boddy said ‘Oh bother’ (not the actual word used) ‘it was alight when I started out’. But on examination the police constable found that the lamp had never been connected. Fined £5”.

I was driving my 1926 Lancia Lambda from Holly Birkett’s place in Fleet to my wartime ‘digs’ at Cove, just outside Farnborough in Hampshire, from where I edited MOTOR SPORT during the war.