I shocked my daughter by telling her I started driving at age 13. We had a bush bomb. An old EJ Holden that was not registered and certainly not roadworthy.
If something went wrong dad grabbed a screwdriver and put his head under the bonnet and 10 minutes later it was working again. We totally had to use phone books and pillows to see over the dash.
We lived on the NSW/Victoria border and my brother used a friend’s address in NSW to get his licence at age 16. It was only paper ¬ no photo¬ and was passed around his mates as fake ID so much it was really only in tatters by the time he actually turned 18.
When my dad was in his teens, the laconic local policeman suggested one of his mates that dad come in and actually get his licence because it was becoming difficult for the police to ignore the fact he was driving around all the time.
And as part of dad’s truck licence test he had to back a truck into the laneway besides the police station. He passed with flying colours, but little did the local constabulary know he had a friend waving him in on the other side of the truck where the police couldn’t see him.
But then again, maybe they did know.
I guess it was a different time. When and how did you learn to drive?
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