The car that my brother bought to replace my morris marina was a volvo 66 variomatic,for those of you not familiar with this model it was a three door estate car powered by a 1100cc engine and two "rubber bands" attatched to a set of conical spindles so the faster the engine revved the rubber bands would ride up the spindles and the car would move, theoretically it could go as fast backwards as it would forwards,i did try this experiment out on a disused air field in flookburgh but ony managed to get up to thirty until i got a bit of a wobble on so i gave up but it was a really fun car!.
My cousin tony had recently been to london with his brother and while he was there he had purchased two tickets for the Rocky Horror Show which was playing at the Wimbledon Theatre, I don't know why but everyone in Ulverston about this time was into the Rocky Horror Show we would all be doing the "Time warp" and "Hot Patootie", Anyway the day of the treck to London came and we had to be up early as two of the girls who worked at the hotel next to my uncles house were coming round to get us ready, Tony was going as Riff Raff and I was going as Frank'n'Furter, the mad doctor and transvestite extraterrestrial, Tony's make up looked fantastic he had used a swimming cap to look bald on top but had his own long hair sticking out at the back he wore a black jacket with tails, ski pants,one flourescent green sock the other flourescent orange and chinese slippers, my get up was somewhat different full face make-up (a bit like someone out of the group Kiss) a long cape, feather boa, green basque, black silk knickers (from one of the girls) fishnets, suspenders, lace gloves and bright pink stilletto's, we looked fantastic!. when we went to leave the house my Auntie said "god are you going too, Margeret?" looking right at me I said "who are talking too?" then she said in her best englitalian "ithoughta you werea your motha" and laughed. we set off around 10am to give us plenty of time to get there as we had no idea of how to get to wimbledon and niether of us had driven through london before,come to think of it, tony had only passed his test about a week before and had not even driven on a motorway before! we stopped at the first services on the southbound carriageway on the M6 which is Forton to get some fuel, as we were leaving there was a hitchiker thumbing a lift, we got past him and stopped, he was running up to the car with glee as he had got a lift aas he got closer I got out of the car to let him in he suddenly stopped the look on his face was a picture, i said "where are you going mate?" he said London Isaid it's your lucky day so are we, he got in the car reluctantly as he was desperate to get home, we drove for a few miles then he asked "errm, are you going to a party?" we said "no!", he seemed to get a little nervous at that answer!! then he said do you dress like this all the time? Isaid no, not all the time! we stopped for fuel again at Watford Gap services and our travelling companion took his leave of us, don't know why? we were quite friendly to him, anyway we set off again as we were leaving the services he was still thumbing a lift so we stopped and said you can get back in if you like which he did with a "oh, alright then" we asked him where he would like to dropped off at and he said stanmore please as we got closer he would say "you don't have to drop me off in the centre of town" we said ok and we eventually dropped him off near the tube station as he got out he bumped straighjt into one of his mates who just laughed at him, he said thanks and gave us £15.00 for some fuel.
we got to the centre of london pretty easily but soon got hopelessly lost looking for wimbledon we drove up the mall down the mall round trafalgar square up piccadilly we ended up on Oxford street where we had the brilliant idea of asking a policeman! so we stops the car and get out, we walk up to this policeman and asked him the way to wimbledon, he looked us up and down and said "just keep driving you'll find it" thanks a lot we said got in the car and set off again somehow we found our way across the thames and soon we got signs for wimbledon Tony suddenly starts whistling the Wombles theme tune so i join in pretty soon we were singing every wombles song that we could think of, "super womble", Bungo's birthday, minueto allegretto and so on,then by accident we found the theatre as we were going round a roundabout, we parked the car and walked up to the theatre everyone in the queue started applauding us everyone came up to talk to us saying god i thought i was daring putting on eyeliner! we had a great time at the show dancing and singing all the songs.
we left london about 11.30pm to drive back to Ulverston which took us about five hours, we stopped at the first services we came too and washed off our make up and changed into our normal clothes. Tony and i still talk about this trip to this day it was just so funny...............................see you soon Steve x
1 comment:
wow you brought back some memories my first car was a green daff 66 variomatic i brought it from a man in our street for £90 he had it services mot`d and taxed for me! wow i loved that car my friends and i had some great laughs in that car. And Rocky Horror i dont know many that have not dressed up and stood outside a theatre waiting to go in and do the time warp with all the paraphenalia that goes with it Newspapaer for the rain scene, confetti/rice for the wedding mars bars etc Lisaxxxx
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