<em>Illustration: Simon Letch</em>

Illustration: Simon Letch

WHEN we moved south we were renting out of town, so there was no way of managing without a second car. Adrian was pretty much my only contact in the area, and we were going to be teaching together at the little school in Branley, and it just so happened his son-in-law had a '74 Kingswood for sale, chestnut brown, duel fuel, manual (''three on the tree''), very clean. I bought it.

My children were in primary school at the time, and a car was a car. I used to drive them everyday. The arguments and outright abuse didn't start until they hit high school.

Then there were daily complaints about the ''bomb'', the ''heap of sh..'', the ''You'd have to be a retard to drive around in a car like this.'' Because it had no heating, on a winter morning the abuse level rose to skirmish, with constant, intermittent sniper fire all the way to school.

The older the children grew, especially the boys, the more animated their condemnations became. Day after day after day I was bludgeoned with the fierce, relentless and unstable logic of the teenage mind.

I admit I liked the King. As the years went by, of course I grew fond. For crying out loud, there has to be some level of loyalty in any long-term relationship! I categorically deny, however, that I held on to it for sentimental reasons. It was a really solid car, I could run it almost exclusively on gas, and the bench seat in the front meant I could legally carry six, and guess how many of us there were in the family?

The arguments against boiled down to one, the aforementioned ''It's a piece of poo,'' delivered with unflagging passion daily for five years. No argument, no matter how solid, can stand up to a siege of such duration. Eventually I ran up a white flag, declared my surrender (the emotional costs were too horrific to bear any longer), and sold the mongrel vehicle.

Timothy Higgins, a kid in my year 8 English class whose father was a truck driver and gifted backyard mechanic, bought the King. That should have been the end of the story, except for one last, recent twist.

A couple of months ago my third son was talking to some university mates who were having breakfast at our place and the big hairy brute had the damn gall to tell them about the ''fully sick'' Kingswood the old man used to drive.

''Bloody awesome beast it was. Imagine if he'd held onto it. I could be driving round in it today. Man, that was no-risk the biggest mistake he ever made.''

Apparently, memory is a very personal thing.

Francis Fox