RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32395, 7 September 1970, Page 19

RANDOM REMINDER

MAKE LOVE—NOT WAR

Cars are not born, they are made; but it is not long before they develop

wills and minds of their own. To understand their little idiosyncracies one needs to have lived with them intimately; to have shared their dreams and know their fears. When this stage is reached all that is necessary to be the proud possessor of a conscientious and wellbehaved little car is to show it your complete confidence and lots of love. This must be good philosophy, for it was given to us by a woman who had previous experience in bringing up a husband and two sons. She avows the car gave her the least trouble of them all.

She has driven the same car for a number of years now and neither are as young as they used to

be. But even young cars will not start on a flat battery.

That was why she inadvertently confessed to a kindly storekeeper, who had carried out her parcels, that she would have to crank her car. He absolutely refused to allow her to do any such thing, saying it was definitely a man’s job. Ten minutes later, still fuming and struggling with the handle, he obstinately refused to allow her to have a go. He tinkered with parts beneath the bonnet, then again attacked with the handle, but still no response. More tinkering; more torturous turning of the handle, but all that started running was his

own perspiration. Net door was a garage. He insisted he go and get a mechanic over to see

what was wrong with her car. He told her not to worry.

At first she refrained from trying the handle herself for fear of offending her gallant assistant but when, after a few minutes had impatiently passed and neither storekeeper nor mechanic appeared she lovingly stroked the bonnet of her little car, leant over and gave the handle an ever so gentle half turn and stood back to hear it happily purring. Just at that moment the storekeeper, hot and hurt, and the mechanic arrived. Feeling terribly embarrassed she thanked them both, particularly the storekeeper for all he had done, then she jumped in and fled.

“It’s not what you do,” she tells us, “but the way you do it”