As a boy I was eager to take up continental motoring, inspired by black and white TV news reports of Monte Carlo Rallies, images of deserted country roads lined with poplars stretching to the horizon and photos of palm-tree-fringed filling stations in exotic locations. I longed to see these things for myself but my dad could never be persuaded to take his Austin 1100 any further afield than the Isle of Wight. Over the years, though, I have been fortunate enough to drive abroad myself, travelling to many far-off places in my Minis. My latest trip to France, in September 2022, was somewhat more prosaic however as we encountered neither snowy mountain passes nor any exciting old-style petrol stations, fuelling up instead at workaday supermarket pumps. We did still get to motor along those long, straight roads and follow little-used country lanes to discover many surprising delights of rural France.
With a little hint of that youthful enthusiasm in mind I set off for Brittany with my long suffering wife Emilia in our 1996 1.3i Cooper,to the Continental ferry terminal at Portsmouth. This trip should have been made two years earlier but, due to Covid, we had to reschedule it several times. When making the booking we could have had no idea that we would be sailing from Portsmouth the day after the death of Her Majesty the Queen and it seemed slightly disrespectful to be slipping out into the night on Brittany Ferries’ Bretagne to enjoy ourselves whilst the nation was still in a state of shock. We passed Royal Navy warships with flags at half-mast and, in the gathering gloom, saw the great bulk of the disgraced aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, which had broken down off the Isle of Wight en route to the USA. It is comforting to know it’s not just Minis which can let you down when you least expect it.
