MY motor was stolen the other day. This will come as a surprise to colleagues whose experience of the Old Dodderer’s mode of transport is restricted to travelling in a vehicle only one step removed from a horse and buggy. Strangely, they uniformly only did this once.

In the 21st century, pre-covid, I boasted, or rather shamefully pleaded guilty, to owning a total of two motors. First, there was a Primera that ended as a defenceless, wounded beast. The central locking did not work. This was of academic interest. No one was going to take it. It took me all my time to fire it up in the morning.

At the age of 12 plus, it slid gently into the hard shoulder. The repair man told me it needed a clutch. This was akin to pointing out that the Reichstag in 1945 needed a coat of paint.

He further observed, with some asperity, that the new clutch was double the value of the old car.

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The Ford Fiasco was next. It was second-hand when I bought it. It was done when I chanced my luck at another MoT for it. My faithful mechanic had plied his trade on my motors for two decades. He negotiated an interior and boot filled with books, newspapers, CDs, takeaway food cartons, and a Siberian tiger to complete his work.

He once said it was difficult for my motors to pass the MoT. It was impossible, he added, for them to pass environmental health tests.

He eventually donned the black cap and passed sentence on the Fiasco. It went to join the Primera in the great scrapyard in the sky.
The Herald: The golden age of motoringThe golden age of motoring

Then came the new motor. Frankly, I do not know precisely why I got it. But suddenly it was sitting outside my door, all shiny and sleek and carrying a baffling array of equipment. Until it wasn’t. I went down one day and someone had taken it.

The prompt and helpful police ventured a possible theory as to how it could be stolen. I, of course, did not understand it. It was about keyless entry using signals. My impression was that to comprehend what had occurred would require a more than passing knowledge of thermonuclear dynamics. I missed that period. It was enough for me to know that it had gone.

There was irony in this. I had been driving it for 14 months and was just getting the hang of it. It had only been a couple of days since I had managed to put the radio on. I had been contenting myself by listening to the wee wumman on the satnav and pretending it was post-modern rap. The other irony, of course, is that the first time I had a car worth stealing, well, it was stolen.

This is not a column about the traumas of losing a motor. Keith Waterhouse, the most entertaining of Fleet Street columnists, once advised aspiring contenders for his role: ‘Nobody cares if your budgie has died.’ This was, of course, an injunction against lachrymose reflections on the banal.

Frankly, too, there can be little mourning about missing possessions in this time, perhaps any time. It would be risible and inappropriate.

The lost car, though, might just carry a lesson, even if it is unlikely to carry the Old Dodderer. There has been a concerted attempt by others to point me towards a new motor if the shiny one does not return.

I have gently resisted all such advice. One of the lessons of these strange times is the realisation that my life is filled with unnecessary objects. For example, I have have a tie rack that would do justice to a 1970s Burtons in quantity and quality. My CD collection is worthy of the first floor at Fopps. I have more books than Bearsden library. (Incidentally I have two books to return to that venerable institution and fear that Rishi Sunak may use the resultant fines to kick start the economy).

The short summary is that I have too much. A motor may just fall into that category. The past couple of weeks have been negotiated without recourse to a personally owned combustion engine.

Necessary travel to vaccination and day care (for grandweans, not me) has been completed by brandishing my free bus pass or concessionaire rail fare. Journeys have taken longer but books have been read. There has been an absence of stress. There has been negligible cost.

The bus gently bumbling down Maryhill Road has inched me closer to a decision that I had instinctively bowed towards on the day when my parking bay had a space where my car should be.

The Herald: Rust in piecesRust in pieces

The question is: do I want or even need a car? The answer is a double negative. At least for now. This speaks to a truth. I’m lucky. First, I have everything I need and, second, I don’t really want anything. This is, I suspect, a result of advancing years rather than the hard-won assumption of a Zen-like character.

This individual experience tallies with that of others. Casual conversation suggests others of my age have similar feelings towards material possessions. Covid has taken so much but has it given some of us – the lucky ones, no doubt – the chance to reflect on what matters, even down to the relatively minor matter of a motor or no motor.

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It has taught us what we find it difficult to do without and what we can do without with some ease.

The motor falls into the latter category and will be parked there. Unless anyone knows of a good deal on a 2005 Ford Fiasco?

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