As a father and now a grandfather, I have come to realise how the things that you do with your children and grandchildren in their formative years can influence them for the rest of their lives.
So it was with me and my passion for that British icon, the Land Rover. On my faded and yellowed birth certificate, my dad’s occupation is stated as ‘private investigator’. I realise that may well conjure up images of him hiding in the shadows of a London back street in the 1960s spying on an unfaithful husband, but his job wasn’t quite what it appeared to be on paper.
In fact, Dad was what was known in the trade as a ‘car snatcher’. He worked for a finance company and, back in the day, if you missed the payments on your new Cortina or Humber, he would come along, hook it up and tow it away. There were occasional moments of glamour and Mum often recalls the time they had the use of
