Anders Hanson

I know it isn’t politically correct or environmentally friendly, but I am sad today as my car has reached the end of its life.

My blue Fiat Cinquecento is the only car I have ever had. I bought it new in 1998 when I started working on board Midland Mainline trains between Sheffield and London. I was working shifts, the earliest of which started at 04:30, which meant that I had to get a car so I could get to work. I didn’t really enjoy driving, but it was a necessity.

Life then changed and I grew to like the freedom of just being able to go off somewhere at the drop of a hat, particularly as I like exploring places off the beaten track. Also, when working in politics a car has become crucial for transporting leaflets, campaign volunteers, stakeboards, various parliamentarians, backdrops and all sorts of other things around the place.

But all of that will now be at an end. My car has had huge problems over the last year and I have spent too much money on trying to repair it. I finally decided this week that it had to go, and so it was sold to a garage in Loxley. For a heap of metal and plastic, it is amazing how sad I feel about it. It might be an inanimate object, but my car is one of the few things that has been constantly a part of my life over the last nine years. It has given me a huge amount of freedom to go off and do things I wouldn’t have done otherwise.

I can’t really believe it myself that I am feeling so sentimental. It hasn’t done that many miles – about 90,000 – with a third of those done in the nine months I lived in Wales. But that is largely because I do walk to places a lot, I tend to use the train for longer distances and in Sheffield I have always used the bus.

With me moving in to a flat in Sheffield city centre next month, it is at least coming at a time that is more convenient for me not to have a car. I can’t afford a new one anyway. The place I will be living in, won’t have any parking and it will be right at the centre of all the city’s bus routes and about five minutes from the railway station. But I will miss it most for days off when I want to get away from things.

Not having a car will change my life. It will be an interesting experiment to see how, after nine years, I get used to not having one again.