Evergreen

2017 EVERGREEN 119
three people. Dessert was no
escape from the calories: the
trifle came in a washing-up
bowl-sized dish. My father
never quite lost the extra
weight he put on in Norway!
A long drive to Austria
was next in 1969: a delightful
return to Alpine air and
beautiful music. By 1971 I
had a full driving licence
(and an International one,
which looked like “papers”
forged by POWs in The Great
Escape), so I was entitled to
take the wheel of the stately
grey Wolseley we drove to
Italy. We sat in Florence,
overlooking the Ponte
Vecchio in a romantic dusk,
braved the hectic traffic of
Rome and the infernal heat of the
Autostrade del Sole where Ferraris
and Maseratis zipped past us at a
shocking 120 miles-per-hour, and
came at last to spectacular views
across the Bay of Naples and the
haunted, sun-struck streets of
Pompeii.
My mother liked to drive barefoot,
especially in summer, and there
were many days during our hot
trips across Europe when she didn’t
wear shoes at all. The Italians and
the French thought her cool and
chic, the Spanish, to whom bare
feet signified poverty or penitence,
thought she was crazy. But once
behind the wheel, no vehicle was
beyond her capabilities and no drive
beyond her endurance. She nursed
a variety of big cars through heat,
thunderstorms, and bewildering
traffic jams. She negotiated the
rugged mountains of Spain, swung
us over Alpine passes, and roared
down the blistering length of Italy —
all with superb driving skill, elegant
style and tireless good humour. High
above Monte Carlo she stripped off
her dress just so she could say she
had driven the Grande Corniche
road in a bikini!
Occasionally we became lost,
almost never on major roads (one
of us was always navigating from a
sheaf of maps) but sometimes in the
towns or cities as we tried to find our
hotel. Somewhere deep in France