The sweet taste of freedom

The L-plates are off and it's time to hit the road. Everyone remembers their first (car), so James Fisher asked COUNTRY LIFE staff and friends to tell us about theirs

- James Fisher

Mark Hedges, Editor

My first car was a Mini. Its brown colour made it look like a mobile cowpat, but it hid the rust as best it could. It was a gift from a maiden aunt, who pottered around Oxfordshire in it. She wasn’t one for modish things such as a radio, so my six-hour journeys to Durham University were spent staring at the mile counter waiting for round numbers or parts of the Fibonacci sequence to appear. I used to go everywhere in it with my border terrier and to horse events (and the pub) with my great friend, Rachel. The car had some magic —40 years later, Rachel became my wife.

Levison Wood, explorer, writer and photographer

Ah, my first car—a trusty old silver Audi A4 1.9 TDi, the quintessential ride for young officers in the British Army in about 2005. At 23, I finally felt like a grown-up after years of globetrotting and zipping around Stoke in my mum’s Fiat Punto. The Audi was a charming beast, complete with torn leather seats, questionable radio reception and an unparalleled ability to guzzle diesel. I cherished those two years, navigating the back roads of Camberley and Essex with a mix of pride and mild embarrassment. Alas, she met her fate in the Colchester Parachute Regiment car park, abandoned when I deployed to Afghanistan. A bittersweet farewell to my warrior’s chariot.

Paula Lester, Managing and Features Editor

My first car was a metallic denim-blue VW Golf, in which I used to whizz about the lanes of east Devon—with my first black labrador, Boot, in the boot, funnily enough—when doing my rounds as a reporter on the