Wow - another Vauxhall Cavalier! When I left Thomson Free Newspapers to become managing director of Central Press Features in 1990, it meant a change of car. I was not sorry to see the Peugeot 405 go, I had suffered my fill of the lack of power steering and the incurable wheel wobble at speed.
In selling myself for this new job and finding out about the company, I had neglected to ask any questions about its company car policy, apart from the fact there was a company car with the job. I think I’d assumed it would be a Rover 800, Ford Granada or Vauxhall Senator, so when it came to the process of choosing my company car, I was a little disappointed to be offered a Vauxhall Cavalier – my third and final Cavalier (and appropriately a Mk III).
It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but it was actually a really nice car; the new body shape was a hatchback with loads of room and a reasonable specification.
My work was taking me to London and we had offices inside a small complex off Gordon House Road in Kentish Town. I had negotiated a season ticket and parking at the railway station as part of my package, so the car was initially used to go back and forth between home and Peterborough station.
That first year commuting to London wasn’t quite what I had in mind. This was in the days before rail privatisation and so all trains were operated by British Rail. They were hugely unreliable – I thought trains might be late now and again, but I never realised that they might break down, which they did (all the time) - and when the train managed to keep running, the signals often failed.
The local service (from Peterborough to King’s Cross) took an hour-and-three-quarters but it was the same price as the inter-city (which took 50 minutes), so everyone got the inter-city. It was always packed, almost always full by the time it arrived in Peterborough and there was no automatic seat booking as there is now. I remember thinking: why don’t they book seats like they do on an aircraft? That was 20 years away!
I’d push onto the train and invariably stand in the space by the doors, sometimes I’d move down the train to try to spot a spare seat, but they were rarer than hen’s teeth. In those days, you could still smoke on trains and the last coach was always the smoking coach. That was often the best bet for finding a seat, but when the connecting doors opened, it was like walking into a smoke-house. People using this carriage were the people who couldn’t last 30 minutes without a cigarette and so they smoked a lot – it was awful. Fifty minutes in there and you'd be cured (like a kipper).
During the winter, the reliability was even worse and sometimes you were forced onto the slow train. I remember one winter night just before Christmas when that was the only option and I stood on a freezing train carrying double the number of passengers it should. Every station we stopped at (and we stopped at all of them because this was the only train running), the doors would fail to close because the runners were icing up. Sliding doors might have seemed a good idea, but they weren’t that night. At some stations, hot water was poured on (which meant even more ice when it cooled and froze) and at others, staff had to come down and hack at the ice on the offending channels. The train couldn’t move until the doors were closed. We were more than three hours on that train and the chap next to me was trying to get home to Grantham. Peterborough was as far north as he could get and he was hoping to grab a taxi to finish his journey.
On another night, on another overcrowded train, we were packed in like sardines and some pushing led to words and a fist fight. I was right in the middle of it. I grabbed the pair of them and said: “Jesus Christ it’s bad enough being late and crammed onto the train without this!” I must have sounded quite scary because they both behaved after that and one of them apologised to me for his bad behaviour.
People who say railways should be renationalised would change their tune if they’d ever suffered those commutes. It's not perfect now, but it's a heck of a lot better.
When I got to King’s Cross, the Tube awaited. At least going north on the Northern Line meant it was relatively quiet, but sod’s law always seemed to mean the first train was Edgware and not the High Barnet branch that I needed. The tube had its fair share of outages too, but the worse part of the journey was the long, straight escalator from Kentish Town station onto the street. The wind used to blow straight down and cut you in two. You were almost pleased when the escalator broke down and you had to walk – at least the exertion warmed you up.
After a year of commuting hell, I decided not to renew my season ticket and to drive instead. My season ticket was counted as part of my wages and so I was taxed on it at 40 per cent, which increased my tax bill. I those days, company cars were not taxed so heavily and I could put petrol in without penalty. Also, we were allocated two parking spaces at the office, but there were not many people in the complex and so parking was never an issue. It was a two-hour drive (each way) about the same as the commuting time, but the Cavalier proved far more reliable and comfortable than the train (and it was about the same price).
It never broke down, never stopped due to signal problems and kept going through snow and ice.
Hold-ups were predictable and I learned lots of north London rat-runs to get to work. I used to walk Jack half-way up Toneham avenue and set off at 8am to get into the office for 10am. I'd leave about 6pm to be home for 8pm. Saturdays were good because traffic was lighter and school holidays were an absolute blessing. You could sometimes be home in 90 minutes.
As well as commuting, the Cavalier took me to meetings all over the country. I wish I knew what mileage it finished on, but it must have been well into six figures.
To drive, the car was very solid and fairly high gearing meant motorway cruising was very comfortable. It was a 2-litre petrol engine with eight valves (nothing too spicy). It had fuel injection, but a minimal of electronic controls and sensors compared to cars of today. It was very reliable and managed close to 40mpg on my commutes. There was central locking, electric windows, head-restraints and this was my first car with power steering - bliss!
Compared to the 405, where you braved hand-shakes at speed, this was wonderful.
During my spell with the car, Central Press was negotiating with a number of other groups to start a new national news agency in competition with the Press Association and we had a number of meetings here, there and everywhere. At one meeting (at the old Birmingham Post & Mail building in the centre of Birmingham) I managed to reverse into a concrete mushroom and dent the rear bumper. That was the car's one scar.
The news agency came to nothing because PA dropped its prices massively to keep everyone on board, but it had been a close thing and I made a lot of good contacts during the process. I didn't realise it, but only a few years later, I would be working for PA.
The Cavalier never travelled abroad. Max was only a few years old when I got it and we couldn't face packing three of them into the car for France. We did a few longer holidays in the Cavalier, including a couple to Wales. We rented a castle in South Wales (Roche Castle, near Solva) with the Knights one year and got around quite a lot that holiday. The following year, we went to North Wales and rented a cottage at the eastern end of Colwyn Bay. It was a cold, damp place and it rained quite a lot. The children were cheered by visits to the Red Dragon amusement arcade in Rhyl and we had a few walks, including a soaking day around Betws-y-Coed and a trip up Snowden with Tom and Max.
In those days, Bristol United Press had a policy of keeping company cars for four years, so I had the Cavalier a long time. I was pleased to see it go because it was getting a little small for our needs by this time. People-carriers were all the rage and although I couldn't stretch my budget to a Renault Espace, I could get the family an eight-seater Nissan Serena. Thus I moved on to my second Nissan.
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| Above and below: on holiday in North Wales with the family. |
