We called her Gladys (for a much-loved friend
whose coat was that same mud-toned middling brown):
a Morris Minor Traveller, one to blend
with sepia streets in any market town.
Nostalgia on wheels, and second-hand.
‘One careful lady owner’ – weren’t they all?–
she served us well, bringing the promised land –
a honeymoon at first, and then the trawl
of villages, their churches, B and Bs,
crammed with OS maps, picnic rug, the stuff
of simpler yesterdays, a car whose ease
disguised her sterling virtue: she was tough.
We sold her but her number-plate’s alive
in online passwords: Gladys will survive.