We arrived home with all three of us soaking wet - while the four people inside the car were warm and dry.
One holiday Father was unable to bring us home so my father’s youngest brother arrived in his two-seater black car. Uncle Jack’s pride and joy was his car and, as there were no rules and regulations about seatbelts etc. in 1934, Mother with my younger sister and brother sat in the front seat of the car with Uncle Jack. I remember a brass lever being twisted and a handle being pulled out and a bench seat with a high back and sides suddenly appeared at the rear of the car. This was the ‘Dicky seat’. A brother who was six years older and a sister four years older than me, set off home with me squashed between them in the ‘Dicky seat’.
It was lovely summer’s afternoon. My older sister and I were wearing cotton dresses, my older brother was wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts. It was a quite boring experience. Nothing to see but the back of the car, Mother occasionally looking out of the rear window of the car to see if we were still there. We had travelled about six miles when a great big black cloud appeared and the heavens opened. As we had no shelter we were soaking wet in seconds, in fact it rained nearly all the way home to Whitley Bay. We arrived home with all three of us soaking wet – while the four people inside the car were warm and dry. It was the first and last time I rode in a ‘Dicky seat’.