Trying to remember that song title ... what have YOU forgotten about during Covid?

by Paul Sweeney

​It’s all Stan Barnes’s fault, this blog. I wouldn’t have started it if not for him. Why? Well, Stan posted this in the “Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles" group:
“I'm probably as guilty as many owners in neglecting their boots. 🙄 The felt under the S-Type's parcel tray has been sagging for a while.....finally got around to sorting it today. Having a P6 as well, I can certainly appreciate what a decent boot size looks like. 🤣 So c'mon......don't be shy.....let's see your boots!” 

I thought that was a pretty good post – something a little bit different – then carried on about my day. It was only later after a mug of coffee that I thought, “Have I got a photo inside Queenie’s boot? Don’t think so”. Then a little later still (after another mug of coffee) I thought, “She’s parked downstairs – it would be no trouble to nip down and take a photo in the boot”. So I did, and here it is.

Queenie's boot

If you’re not familiar with my relationship with Queenie, what began so well some five years ago when I bought Queenie in 2015 – it was love at first drive – had gradually faded away. The affection I once felt had slowly been eroded by a series of incidents – a combination of bad luck and “stuff that happens to old cars” until I saw the old car as no more than a business tool. If I'm really honest it had become a love/hate thing and I felt I had been foolish to buy an old car in the first place, given that I don't even like wielding a spanner.
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Early in 2020 I began seriously thinking about putting her up for sale. However that wouldn’t go well while there were problems with the pre-select gear change, and so I waited until that had been fixed (huge kudos to my mate Clynt). After a great deal of asking around, researching, many hours spent with Queenie in bits and more than one false dawn she was finally working well again and was ready to resume work as a vintage car tour vehicle in Napier. I could hardly just sell her right away after all that time, blood, sweat and tears could I? So I decided to run her on the tours for a while longer and see how things went.

But then Covid-19 struck in early/mid March this year and all the international visitors upon whom my business depends had gone home, so Queenie has been sitting quietly in my garage with nothing to do ever since.
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Back to Stan’s post – I took the boot photo and posted it in his thread. It happened to be a sunny day and I didn’t have much else to do, so I thought “I should start Queenie up – it’s been a while” and sat in the drivers' seat, struck as always by the almost overpowering smells of leather, wood and engines. The starter turned very slowly as the battery was low on charge, but after a few pulls she fired into life.  ​Having got her started, I thought, “Shouldn’t just shut the engine down – she needs a run to recharge the battery a bit” – and so I took her out, intending to return within 10 minutes or so.

After a few minutes reacquainting myself with the car's little peculiarities (I’d not driven her for at least 6 months, maybe more) I began to relax and even enjoy myself. In fact I REALLY enjoyed myself cruising around in the old girl. Older gents stopped to peer at her as we passed, no doubt wondering what model she is – Daimlers are definitely not the most common British classic on the roads here.

Some smiled and waved …. and bit by bit, I felt the old pleasure returning as she cruised serenely around bends, cushioning bumps in the road surprisingly well and generally keeping up with modern traffic. I stopped at the local supermarket and took a couple of photos (below) - how incongruous she looks between the moderns. Queenie is genuinely a car from another era years before supermarkets were a thing, let alone Covid-19.

On leaving the supermarket I found myself taking the scenic route home to enjoy the drive, even pausing to take a photo (below) of Queenie's dash as I thought it looked good in the sunshine. I finally parked Queenie back in the garage at home and was surprised to find we had been out for almost 2 hours. "Mustn't leave it so long next time" I thought.

​And so I come back to the song I mentioned in the title … it's come to me now. You can play it by clicking below.