HUGH BONNEVILLE

The Earl of Grantham and Paddington Bear’s foster father talks childhood Volvos and EV living...

There was a famous old Volvo 145 in our family when I was young. It was a tank of a thing and my parents used to put a whopping great canvas tent and big foldaway canvas canoe on the roof – with three kids in the back too.

The great joy of it was me discovering the cigarette lighter and realising that it made pretty patterns in the front seat when hot. I thought if I could make the Olympic rings on the red seats then that would look quite nice. I got something of a telling off for that.

Then my dad moved on to another Volvo – he was very much a safe driver as you can detect – after which he had an Opel Rekord. That was very exciting because it had electric front windows, one of which worked. The other one blew the fuses if you tried to use it. That was superseded by a Vauxhall Astra.