Point of view
It took our columnist time to get comfortable behind the wheel. But now she’s found her dream car – Molly the Mini
Little seemed more important to me when I was 17 than passing my driving test. Partly because it represented a crucial rite of passage on the way to adulthood, and partly because all the popular kids in school had their own wheels. I wanted the freedom they had – to go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted without having to ask my parents for a lift. I wanted to drive an open-top, bright red sports car like Jonathan and Jennifer at the start of the fabulous 1980s TV crime caper Hart To Hart.
I’m not ashamed to say that I failed my first driving test. I was ashamed at the time and I remember I cried. My memory of that exam is that I was too wide going around a corner and you’re possibly not meant to scream when executing an emergency stop. I got myself together and sat the test again the next date I was allowed to. Nothing was more important than getting my licence, getting out on the road and being free.
I passed my test second time around, then realised something important. To drive a car, you had to buy a car. I couldn’t afford one, so I put the little paper licence away in a drawer and with it my dreams of being a glamorous millionaire detective.
Unfortunately, I’m restricted when it comes to my choice of cars because of my height. My mother, who’s shorter than I am, used to drive a Fiat and, despite it being the smallest car I’ve ever seen, still had to find solutions to being vertically challenged. I remember, before we left the house, she had to change into her ‘driving shoes’, which had a high heel so she could reach the pedals. I feel her pain. I present a TV show called Susan Calman’s Grand Day Out, in which I drive a vintage camper van called Helen Mirren. I’m often asked why I chose her and the simple answer is, because I could reach the pedals. I tried a series of vans, in most of which I could reach the clutch but not the gear stick or vice versa. I am lucky, though, in a way. My vintage camper van is only really drivable for me because of my experiences of driving cars in the 1990s – no power steering and a suspension that means the smallest bump turns us into a stunt act.
I eventually bought my first car in my mid-20s, when my sister offered to se
