I am on the search for some new Wellington boots and that started a worm in my brain about boots and some house parties I have been to and a car that joins them all together.
The car in question, if I had kept it would have been worth a bit, was a Honda N600.
This one sold for £4,200 in 2022, mine I bought for £300 in 1978 from a family member.
The first party, was at a thatched house in Hampshire, of course it was called Yew Tree Cottage. Almost 50 years ago I had taken a temporary job at Harrods while awaiting the inevitable rejection from the Army. A girl working there asked me for the weekend, and what was the first thing to buy, at a discount were some ‘green’ hunters. Along with a few discarded shotgun cartridges and thumbed copies of Country Life strewn on the back seat, I was in full HP mode.
When I arrived, I was greeted by the hostess, sherry and the instructions about the village fete that they held each year. Family hold back was drilled into me, no sneaking out for a few pints but on the total idea of showing the lower orders in the village that they too could enjoy the cream teas and the chance of winning in the raffle. But who won the raffle?
Of course, I did. Double cotton sheets, maybe a premonition as to what would not occur with the daughter, and anyway I was told to immediately refuse the prize. Given my precarious financial state, I was a little miffed, did the tidy up, the obligatory Sunday walk in the ‘hunters’ and made my way home. The muddy boots joined the back seat of the N600, very country!
So, the car is still in the picture. Off to the village of Ugley, and how I met this challenge party was firstly increasing the stuff of the back seat to include a tennis racket, discarded wax jacket and a flat cap. The host, a Baronet with no sons but three daughters took his role of host seriously. I rather liked the elder daughter. She had invited me, the others, all rather small in stature I recall, looked upon me with distain.
It started with family tennis, a bad idea as my eye ball co-ordination is low, riding, not a fan and a full candle lit dinner. Note to self, beware of fine wine, or rather a quantity of fine wine. By this stage in moving the car earlier off the drive, it had faded and refused to move. I had thought that by Sunday morning and the drive to Church, it might have recovered, but no chance.
I could not offer a lift to my girl with who I was desperate to have some quiet time with, so we all squeezed into a Range Rover which swerved over the immaculate lawn, avoiding the N600 which still refused to move. Asking the girls to shove it out of the way could have been an option, I think by now I was to be shoved out of the way.
I called a friend who could only help on the Monday night so I was shoved onto a train and back home, ready to return after the weekend. My friend duly arrived with me on the evening in his Land Rover Series 1, green ‘hunters’ and a real Barbour. The Baronet and chintzy wife were positively drooling at the possibility of replacing me with him and smothered him. I stood disconsolate, as they held forth by a roaring log fire before I was towed away, the rain thundering down on the thin roof of the N600, but I was determined she would do another adventure.
As fate would have it I met a sister of the original girl in Bahrain, she had married well and yes, he was short in stature as well.
Finally the last memory is of a party in Minster Lovell which technically was not a house party but a 21st dinner and dance, marquee and the invitations were liberally dispersed among my friends. I drove up with my best friend, both already in black tie and anticipating a night of fun, no flirting of course, we were too cool for that.
The N600 purred along, and even in my 6 foot plus height it took us there in comfort. We parked along with a roll call of soft tops, Volvos and Land Rovers, all rather muddy. The daughter of the house was found weeping, overwhelmed by the presents, consoled only by her horse that was brought into the marquee. I am not sure the invitation to stay was not really to be extended so my friend and I took to the road at 4 in the morning, in the morning summer mist. We made it as far as the bridge on the village, where N600 finally rested, as did we, legs out of the window waiting for dawn.
We finally made it home, N600 existed for a few more months till it was taken away by Hammersmith Council!
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