Chapter 8
Practicalities and Economics Highlights
Here and elswhere, routine tasks are described as they were around 1982. Things have very much moved on, of course.
I was completely ignorant when I came to Oxford about most
practicalities: and once single, this became clear almost immediately.
This chapter, is not, dear reader, one to be skipped for its lack of
excitement if you are bent on being, or have just become newly
single. I wasted much money and energy through my own stupidity,
lack of expertise and general gullibility. So please take heed.
The unimaginable horror of maintaining a car
I had arrived in Oxford driving a one-year-old Renault 30, in near
perfect condition. But it was much too expensive to run, and I
decided to sell it. I went alone to Luxicars, a garage dealing
specifically with Renault, to ‘do a deal’. The slick salesman I dealt
with, who in fact dealt with me, convinced me that Renault 30s were
really obsolete. They might, with luck, sell for scrap, he said, but
certainly no private buyer would want one. There was absolutely no
demand for them whatsoever, he assured me with a shake of his
smooth hand. “Who after all, would want a large expensive to run
vehicle in this day and age?” he asked. Now it would be a different
matter completely, he explained if I was selling a small vehicle such
as a Renault 5, which incidentally, was a model he would
recommend. And, coincidentally, he had just such a one. A Renault
5, twelve years old, but only owned by one lady driver, who hardly
ever used it but kept it in a cosy garage. Imagine that one lady
driver, perfect condition and hardly ever used! What a bargain. And
in 1982 unbelievably, I actually believed him. So, a transaction took
place. I paid £1,400 for a twelve-year-old Renault 5, with 56,000
miles on the clock and Luxicars credited me £600 in part exchange
for my Renault 30, just one year on the clock. It was all perfectly
legitimate. No one forced me to sell low and buy high.
Indeed, I thought I had quite a good bargain. I had bought a small,
desirable inexpensive to run, Renault 5, and Luxicars, in part
exchange, had acquired an apparently undesirable and seemingly
unsellable Renault 30. The salesman must have gone out at
lunchtime and drunk Champagne to his success at felling another
pathetic and inexperienced woman. The thought still makes me sick.
I left the garage in my innocence, quite happy. My friend Michael,
usually so supportive and encouraging when told of my various
activities, went completely white, shook a bit, and seemed unable to
speak when I told him of my bargain. To have been so duped by a car
salesman’s line of rubbish and untruths was, to him, incredulous.
My brother-in-law and the vicar held the same view. I tried
unsuccessfully therefore to stop my cheque, recover the Renault 30
and return the Renault 5. But I was too late, the cheque had been
cashed. The bargain had truly been struck and I was the loser. Two
weeks later I saw the Renault 30 parked outside a large house in
North Oxford. The house did not, at a glance, look like a scrapyard.
The worst punishment for my folly was that I felt such a fool and was
constantly reminded of my stupidity by my friends and loved ones.
Car stories are very dreary so I will keep the facts to the minimum.
I will simply say that for three years the Renault 5, once on the road
could not be faulted. However, it wasn’t often on the road. It had
one major deficiency. It wouldn’t start. Apparently, it did not like any
weather conditions. It felt no joy in the warmth of the sun, nor in the
winter cold, nor in the wind or in the rain, and sulkily refused to
budge. Several garages tried to cure this problem, but it was totally
unresponsive to all efforts. Three years later, when my aunt died and
left me a small legacy, I decided that a new car was top priority.
This time, I thought, no charlatan or rogue in a garage is going to
outwit me. I shall approach buying a car in a thoroughly wise way –
much as an Army officer might plan an attack, with rigour and
efficiently. I sent for a copy of Which Magazine’s special issue dealing
solely with cars. It described in great detail the different makes, their
good points and their drawbacks. For instance, small roomy ones
with hatchbacks, large roomy ones economical in petrol with a place
for the dog, sports cars for Yuppies, or stout and reliable ones for the
older couple. In fact, a large variety of combinations each of which
had professional recommendations.
After weeks of deliberation, I decided that the right car for me
was the Vauxhall Astra GL 1300. It suited all my requirements and
was thoroughly recommended as a smallish comfortable car,
inexpensive on petrol but full of life, as it were. Having made that
decision I now had to find and buy a second-hand model. I bought
several copies of the Thames Trader (a magazine advertising used
cars in the area) over the ensuing weeks, marking suitable
contenders. But finding and buying the perfect car is not easy. Often
ones that sounded suitable had already gone by the time I rang, or
the advertisement had neglected to say that although the car was in
‘perfect condition’ and only two years old, it has somehow travelled
some 55,000 miles. It is true, apparently, that after 100,000 miles a
car engine is in its dotage, and the rest of the pieces and parts are
none too sprightly either. In fact, they all need replacing – including
the engine. Anyway, becoming by now a little desperate (the
Renault’s insurance had run out) I saw one advertised as being in
perfect condition, three years old, and only £2,500 because the
owner was going abroad. I made an appointment to see it the
following evening in Newbury. The house was in Newbury’s affluent
suburbs and the lady selling it was a middle-aged, middle-class
Telegraph reader who organized her local PTA. Dependable, I
thought. She and her husband were ‘devoted Christians’ and were
selling this car for friends, a couple who had had to rush off to
Canada to spread the word. Having bought this car, reputed to be in
good condition and finding this not to be so, I concluded the mote in
their own eye should have been examined before they rushed
abroad to set others to rights about theirs.
I knew that it was common practice to get the AA or some expert
to check any car before buying, but several people had seen the car
that day and there were more to come. The woman was anxious to
sell it (not surprisingly) and as the AA takes approximately four days
before going out to look at a potential car, I had to buy it
immediately or lose it. It looked in excellent condition and during a
ten minute ‘drive around’ it seemed perfect. I bought it.
Two days later I drove it back to Oxford. During this short journey I
discovered that driving over fifty miles per hour the steering wheel
wobbled so much that I couldn’t hold on to it, the heating didn’t
work, and the light switch came away from the dashboard when I
tried turning the lights on. And that was only the beginning.
I feel it is important to note this ‘perfect’ cars deficiencies, so that
potential trusting females might benefit from mistakes. These are
the completely new parts I have had replaced or repaired in the last
fourteen months:
3 tyres
1 light switch
1 car engine
1 choke
1 starter motor
1 gasket
plugs
1 battery
-
Plugs
1 alternator
1 set of keys
1 ignition switch
1 exhaust pipe
1 front offside shock absorber
1 offside suspension leg
Back brake shoes
1 fuel pipe from pump to carburettor
Points
In addition, I had the fan belt tightened, the steering wheel
adjusted, and the tyres balanced. The bill for these ‘adjustments’ has
so far come to £1,063.25.
Anger, agony, disbelief, fear, and frustration are just a few
emotions I have undergone over the months worrying about this car,
to say little of having to find the money to pay for it.
Garages are still a male bastion, and my conclusion is that a
woman should never go to them alone unless she has done a car
maintenance course and is assertive by nature. A man is imperative
in car transactions and single women should bribe, hire, or pay one
to accompany her when car dealing, either buying or just organizing
repairs.
I have just learnt to ask the right questions about dirty points and plugs,
and/or checking the carburettor and I do now know that the
electrical parts are nothing whatsoever to do with the engine – but
still. I have learnt too late. Cars and their curious temperamental
ways are really beyond me and are, also, of little interest. I simply
wish one thing of my car, that it should be reliable. So far this wish
has not been granted and sometimes I seriously think that I would
get married again if I could find a man to take charge of the dreaded
car with all its whims and fancies, and bills. The last time I took the
beastly thing to the garage the mechanic, now very familiar with the
perfect Astra, declared desperately that either my car had a jinx on
it, or it was what is known, in the trade, as a ‘Friday night’ car. This is
the one, apparently, that is the last on the line to be assembled on
Friday night before the weekend break when everything is put
together in great haste but without much care. I strongly suspect my
Astra was one of these, since short of replacing the windows and
doors there is not much left of the original model. And not a great
deal left of my savings. CAVEAT EMPTOR, Let the buyer beware, is a
quote I shall never now forget when buying anything. I strongly
endorse its truth.
The ghastliness of gas bills and budgeting.
I had had gas fired central heating fitted in the house when I
bought it. The plumber who installed it conscientiously explained to
me how the clock, instrumental in working the thermostat, should be
set to regulate the hours and temperature needed during any
twenty-four hours. His explanation seemed a little complicated, but I
was too proud to go over it all again. The result was that at the end
of the first cold water quarter I had a gas bill for £489.93. It was
terrible and frightening. Fortunately, my mother, always generous,
agreed to lend me the money to pay the bill. But even she, biased,
was incredulous that I didn’t understand the workings of my own
boiler. I abandoned pride and asked the plumber back. He came, was
very understanding, and soon its intricacies became clear.
I rang the Gas Board and spoke to a charming woman, one Mrs
Hall. I asked her the best way to pay the gas bill on a limited income
and she suggested she should send me a Gas Budget plan. On
receiving it I worked out how much gas I used weekly, on average
through the year. With this knowledge the gas bill in now paid
through a Banker’s Order, so much every month throughout the
year. Consequently, I am spared the agony of the dreaded brown
envelope on the mat waiting to frighten me when I come down in
the morning, demanding large sums of money for the Gas Board. If
you want to learn to love your boiler, I recommend this system.
Buying new clothes is good for the morale and bad for the bank
balance. With not much money to spare and clothes a luxury, not a
necessity, Harrods, and Laura Ashley are simply places to window
shop, not actually to buy. Nor, indeed, is anywhere else. So,
wondering how I could have something different, I discovered the
joys of shopping at Oxfam and other second-hand shops. From
Oxfam I once bought two corduroy jackets, one denim waistcoat
and a pair of leather boots, hardly worn, all for £27. I had them
cleaned and no one could tell that they didn’t come from Harrods.
Perhaps they originally did, since many rich women, to make
themselves feel better about being rich, I suppose, gather last year’s
fashions from their wardrobes in the spring and magnanimously take
them to charity shops. (passing through the eye of a needle is
not going to be easy, after all, and men and women of all means
need all the help they can get). Depending on the area some shops
have much better things than others so it is worth going to several.
I sorted through my own clothes and divided them into three
heaps. To keep and alter, to sell, or sadly to put into the dustbin.
Some I kept were really very old, circa 1960s, but still great
favourites. I become very fond of my clothes. I find it as
heart-breaking as saying goodbye to an old friend when I finally
discard a tattered cardigan. I’m a great recycler; I cut up some of the
old dresses and made them into skirts, and some of my long skirts I
altered to three quarter length. I needed the familiarity of my old
clothes while so many other things in my world were changing. As in
Heathcliff’s and Cathy’s alliance, I feel that my clothes are me and I
am them.
I discovered, too, the wonders of the car boot sales.
These weekend diversions have crept over here from America and are in
excellent invention. In my house there is no storage space. All the
clothes I was less fond of, but which still had life left in them, I took
to sell at car boot sales. The local paper tells you where these took
place: it is usually on a Saturday or Sunday in the local school or
college car park. By paying £4 or £5 at the entrance, you park your
car and display, as attractively as possible, the contents of your boot.
I have had many an adventure in the pursuit of people to buy my
old clothes. At a car boot sale combined with a fete in a farm field
outside a twee black-and-white Tudor-cottagey village I met and
talked to many disparate people. I spoke to a gypsy woman who
wove spells. She was 59 but looked 30. (If her youthful appearance
was due to her magic and she had had any business sense, she could
have been rich). Her daughter, she told me, had married the son of
the Squire. I saw the Squire, red-faced, fat, and jovial, shouting
enthusiastically to the home team during a tug-of-war against a
neighbouring village. (I wondered, watching him, what he did with a
gypsy girl in his bed. He didn’t look blessed (?) with sensuality, but I
know you can never tell.
A chatty lady from the local garage took a great fancy to four
pretty velvet pinafore dresses I had for sale. I was selling them
because, sadly, in my middle age I had outgrown them: they were
too small and too young. She rushed off to try them on in the
makeshift outside lavatory. It was built out of straw bales, put up
outside the cowshed. Her return was triumphant. They fitted her and
she bought all four. I was triumphant too. I made £24. A retired
accountant, who was also the church warden, was trying to sell some
rather tired looking plants from the boot of his car, next to me.
Giving up early, he asked me to choose something from my boot, for
his wife. Her size, he thought was something like mine, but then
again, he couldn’t really remember. He had probably been married
for fifty years and between breakfast and lunch he had forgotten her
shape. I selected two items that I was selling for my sister. Her
clothes are definitely superior to mine, so I charged £10 for a tweed
skirt, and £8 for a jacket of Italian origin. He was delighted with
them, and I made over £70 that day.
The less choice I have in choosing anything, the better. So much
time and energy, which I do not wish to waste, goes into choice. My
aim was to establish a uniform for summer and winter, in order to
eliminate the worry and bother of what to wear every day. This plan
has been very satisfactory and I now have three skirts for winter, all
the same style, and two pinafore dresses. I wear the winter clothes
for nine months of the year and should it be warm in the summer I
have an identical wardrobe, in cotton, for this eventuality.
In the same way that I reduced food choices, and found things
much easier, reducing clothes choices has been a great relief and
getting dressed in the morning is now no trouble at all.
How to take the torment out of the rates.
Rates do not go away by putting the bill in the kitchen drawer,
neither do they contract. Rates simply go up and, like death, are
inevitable. To minimize the agony of paying them I find monthly
instalments are preferable to finding a lump sum each April. The
council is quite agreeable to payment this way.
The charm of investing in a Building Society: how not to be swindled of your savings.
If you do happen to have a fairy godmother who leaves you some
money there is no better place to put it, I think, than in a building
society. Money matters seem unbelievably complicated to those of
us uninitiated in their complexities, and unscrupulous people can
relieve you of your savings with no great conscience. Furthermore,
they leave you with no redress. There are lots of building societies to
choose from – The Bristol and West being my choice. It seems to be
smaller and cosier than the better-known ones and a sense of family
intimacy pervades the office I go to. The staff are extremely helpful
and friendly, always prepared to explain anything I need to know and
which I do not understand – like percentages and things of a similar
mysterious nature. I have consequently grasped the fact that I can
get a higher rate of interest for my investments at a Building Society
than I can at the Bank. Building Societies, I know, do not conjure up
excitement in the mind, but then they are not meant to. Safety is the
adjective that suits them and me. I like to believe that, like a nanny,
they will look after me and my best interests, (I’m sure Rupert
Brooke would have gone to one). They are a sort of caring aunt. And
this is just what one wishes to embrace being in the single position,
something secure and solid with no risks attached.
The importance of not letting the dreaded function of shopping and cooking haunt you.
Terence Rattigan’s play Separate Tables is thought provoking. But
the thought that provokes me most is not that a spiritless woman,
aroused by passion, overcame her fear, and braved the enemy, but,
how lucky all those people were, living in a hotel. They had
absolutely no worries whatsoever about what they were going to
eat; either about shopping for it or puzzling about the menu. They
just sat down and ate it. There are many disparaging things said
about institutional type food, especially English food. It is usually
boiled cabbage and shepherd’s pie followed by sago pudding, or
perhaps in more modern places, instant curry followed by instant
whip. But if I do not have to think about any of its journey, from
mind to table as it were, anything is delicious. “Life is so every day”
someone complained once. Food is certainly everyday and I think
things would have been better arranged if we had had six days in
which to labour and eat, and on the seventh everything, including
eating, stopped. This would have been a proper day of rest, at least
for the one in the family who shops and cooks.
Eating on my own I find is quite a different event from family
repasts or communal meals. The thought of making something
tempting for myself, on an everyday basis, has no appeal at all.
During lunch I listen to the news and at supper I listen to the Archers.
The food I eat is of secondary importance. But, with the increasing
waistline rapidly acquired by not eating the right things – I decided to
make a little more effort in shopping and preparation. Otherwise, I
saw myself as the Fat Lady at the Fair.
Practising food economy creates practising vegetarians, since
buying meat is a luxury, not often considered. But I do buy kippers
and haddock since fish is a must, apparently, whereas meat is not.
Marks and Spencer, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s all produce tempting
packaged pies, fish pies, meat pies, chicken pies, vegetable pies and
an assortment of frozen pies. The pies are made of good things and
are easy to cook since no culinary expertise is necessary – only the
ability to open the oven – and delightful to eat. Naturally, there’s a
snag. The price. They are expensive and add pounds to the food bill.
I have one or two stored in the freezer in case of an unexpected
guest for a candlelit dinner or whatever, but otherwise I do not buy
them. It is quite easy, quick, and cheap to make stews and soups out
of fresh vegetables. Yoghurts are good for pudding and fresh fruit is a
taste that I have acquired, even with unamusing apples. (Perhaps the
thought that they are so good for me makes the difference).
I spend about £20 a week on food. My basic shopping list is fresh
vegetables and fruit, cereals, wholemeal bread, Flora, fish and
sometimes a chicken.
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