TESTING TIMES

It`s a sure sign of getting on a bit when your grandaughter passes her driving test. Sarah, who is 17, passed hers at the first attempt on Friday thus putting one over both her Dad and her Grandad, as we both failed our first tests. I don`t know what went wrong for Sarah`s Dad, but I vividly recall my own failure which took place in Maidstone on a Tuesday morning in about 1956.

The trouble with Maidstone in those days was that it didn`t have a by-pass and there were no motorways so that all the traffic between London and the ports like Dover went right through the middle of the town. And Tuesday mornings were when the town`s market was held - a big deal in those days, so maybe not the best time for a driving test. The test centre was pretty much in the middle of the town and I drove out of there rather nervously to join the queue of traffic crawling down the hill. And then we stopped.

For twenty minutes we didn`t move and with the test supposedly lasting about half an hour, I was asked to try and turn round and crawl back to the test centre, where I was told how sorry they were but the traffic conditions did not make it possible for the test to be properly conducted. And would I like to make another appointment for a free retest on any other day than a Tuesday morning, which I did and scraped through the retest despite confessing that I didn`t have a clue about one of the Highway Code questions I was asked. (I have long suspected that they were going to pass me anyway unless I was seriously dreadful as a kind of compensation for the first attempt.)

I`m convinced that the test these days is much more thorough and difficult than it ever was when I had mine. I never had to concern myself with a theory test and the car I learnt to drive - a Hillman Minx - was pretty `basic.` Having passed the test though, I had to wait years before I could own a car of my own and when I eventually did it was a white Ford Popular 100e named Emma, with a side valve engine and lots of eccentric features. I suspect Sarah, who has been saving up for years, might already have her sights set on a car to give her the freedom of the road and a whole new outlook on life. One of life`s rites of passage has been ticked off her list. I just wonder what the next one might be.