Age No Bar

The Times had a piece recently which should cheer up older drivers and riders, including me. One item was about an 88-year-old driver who has recently been allowed to renew his car insurance policy for the £6 annual fee it cost him in 1947, after a no-claims run of 56 years and more than 1,000,000 accident-free miles.

The other item related to the rider of a 1923 550cc Triumph motorcycle which his father bought for him for £66: it had never broken down, and after joining the AA in 1933 the 92-year-old engineer, who still drives his 1993 Toyota, has never had to call out the breakdown service, nor has he had an endorsement on his driving licence since he first had one in 1920. Incidentally, the AA subscriptions have cost him a total of £601, the annual fee from 1933 to 1966 remaining at six guineas, but then rising to the present £39. W B