[Creative Nonfiction] Morris, My First and Only Crush
Read the second-place entry for our week of May 18 contest, Eulogy for An Object
Morris, My First and Only Crush
by
Stuck on an RAF base 20 miles from town, I decided I needed a car, so borrowed 50 quid from my dad. That magnificent sum bought me a black 1956 Morris Minor SGY758, with a split windscreen and dinky little wipers that danced together, then apart. I was enchanted by the chest-height yellow indicators which flicked out, and which passengers accidentally snapped off when they alighted, inevitably walking into them. They weren’t automatic! Morris brought me friends, which was handy as I couldn’t drive until they taught me on the way to and from the pub.
Sometimes we would be as many as seven in the car, four crushed into the back and three in the front, which meant that a passenger had to change gear while I double-declutched because I couldn’t reach the gearstick. On hills I kept the clutch and accelerator at biting point because the handbrake didn’t hold, but who cared? We started at local pubs and on to Bath where closing time was 30 minutes later. We went for ‘lasties’ and bought cans to drink on the way back.
I cleaned Morris out for my driving test, so that he would look his best. The examiner wasn’t impressed, clutching his clipboard and hunched up in the seat, pen poised. We set off. I drove like I always did, double-declutching and ignoring the redundant handbrake. My hill start was a triumph, but I could feel the agitation in the examiner furiously putting crosses in boxes. I was wondering why he was so jumpy, when I realised he had signalled the emergency stop, so I hastily jammed on the anchors and out between his feet rolled an empty beer can …
The first year after passing my test me and Morris got three black marks against us. The first was because a strap thing was hanging down next to the exhaust and the police following me said it was sparking on the ground. We got off with a warning and I dated a petrol head so that he would fix it. He didn’t take the hint quickly enough, so I ditched him and went to a garage.
Then there was a speeding fine. We must have been going downhill with the wind behind us, because speeding wasn’t one of Morris’s strong points. The third was because I loaned Morris to a friend and the police stopped him. He didn’t have insurance. I sent a letter to court, but when I related the contents, my friends thought it would be fun to see what the magistrate thought of it. We sat sniggering at the back of the court as the panel read, ‘I thought he was covered, so I let him have it.’ They were not as amused as we were and fined me.
Morris and I had a loving relationship, until sadly, I could see the road beneath my feet, had rain dripping on me and him drinking - more oil than petrol. Time for Morris to go.
A Note From Our Guest Judge,
This is such a fun story to read. You handle the humour brilliantly, especially in the way you juxtapose elevated language, like “enchanted”, with more informal, colloquial words such as “dinky” and “lasties”. Phrases like “50 quid” alongside “that magnificent sum” (yes, it really would have been back then!) add drama and showcase your unique writer’s voice. Nice work!
You also make space for a poignant turn in the final line, describing the Morris’s demise in that powerful triplet: the “road beneath”, the rain leaking through, the drinking oil. It’s so vivid, I find myself inside Morris too, reluctantly agreeing it’s time to part.
If we had more than 500 words, I’d love to know where Morris ended up and whether, in some form, whole or in parts, he’s still alive.
Thank you for a lovely story.
About
Sue hates writing bios in the third person. She can't remember who she is or what she does in the third person. I know she made a short film on www.sukisuzy.com/films and she writes a monthly newsletter suedufeu.substack.com, Apart from that she aspires to become a screenwriter and has a script long listed in the Euroscript competition and is writing a TV series on the German Occupation of the Channel Islands. I've no idea what else she's doing.
This piece was written in response to the prompt Eulogy for An Object.
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My first car was a split windscreen Morris Minor too, in grey, from 1951. In 1970 I waitressed in Gloucester to earn the forty pounds to buy it from a local postman who was restoring it. He did a good job. Like yours it then became a taxi, in my case for my fellow drama students, taking them safely home all over north London in the small hours, in varied states of intoxication, it being the seventies. The only thing I ever had to replace was a short rubber water hose, somewhere on Adelaide Road near Chalk Farm tube station. Morry reliably whizzed me up and down the A40 between London and the Gloucestershire countryside for three years, one memorable night driving across the Cotswolds on an empty road lit only by the spilt milk of the full moon. I allowed him to be replaced only because my grandmother left my mother a car that she then gave to me. I sold Morry for the original forty pound plus a rather good painting by the purchaser that I still have on my wall. I wish I had never parted with him. Apart from the investment value, he was solid, and quite possibly the most reliable partner I have ever had. I miss him still.
Double declutching! Not thought about that for a long time. This was a delightful journey into the past, I can't believe we used to do things like that. I used to have a boyfriend whose car didn't reverse, so we had to get out and push the car round manually