I was driving my daughter to a Subway one afternoon. You know those hideous take-away baguette joints. However she loves them so she gets to have one every ten years as a special treat.

She asked when she could start learning to drive and it reminded me of my early experience of driving lessons, which I thought I'd share with you.

You are perfectly entitled to think that I have embellished these stories, but they are as accurate as my memory allows.

My first driving examination took place in California in 1977. I had had only two lessons and needless to say I failed. After a brief period to recover and wipe the sweat from his brow, the examiner expressed his disappointment and bid me good luck.

By 1985 I thought the time has come to learn to drive properly. My first driving instructor was straight out of the Gestapo and after two lessons, and following an outrageous screaming rant from him, I stopped the car in the middle of the busy Holloway Road in London and walked home.

I told a nurse colleague about this and she suggested I gave Andy the Greek a ring. He was a North London driving instructor. She said “He never shouts at me”. She was a feast for the eyes, so of course he wouldn’t!

In fact Andy the Greek turned out to be a star. He was never rude to me, was seldom nervous (heaven knows he had every reason to be) and I felt completely relaxed in his company. I am sure I nodded off to sleep occasionally during his lessons. In fact come to think of it I don’t think he even ever gave me any instructions or advice whatsoever.

Most unusually for Andy, I remember one particular lesson he seemed a bit out of sorts. I asked what was wrong and he explained that his cousin Petrou (one of 39 cousins apparently) owed him money. He asked me to pull up outside his kebab shop in Palmers Green with explicit instructions to keep the engine running.

Bear in mind now that I was in a learner’s car, complete with ‘Driving School’ motifs all over the body work. Within minutes he comes running out, chased by a man wielding a knife. He jumped in the car and yelled “ Go, go, go!” With a screech of burning rubber I got him away to safety. Once we had made some distance between us and his enraged cousin, he quietly turned to me and said that I was ready to take my test.

On the day of the examination he said he would turn up at my flat in George’s Road, Tufnell Park at 10.00 am. No sign of him of course. At 10.20, I opened the door to be greeted by a giant of man sporting a walrus moustache, a thick leather jacket and terrible Pidgin English. “I am Georgiou. I take you to lesson”.

He took me to the examination centre in a black left hand drive black BMW, complete with Greek number plates and two bullet holes on the driver’s side front windscreen. When we got to the examination centre in Wood Green, Georgiou stepped out and lit a Cuban cigar whilst the examiner got in.

“Is this your car sir?” he asked. “Well, no not really no” I replied. After a brief pause he said “No, I didn’t think so”.

I was hoping the bullet holes might scare him into passing me so that he could have as little to do with Georgiou as possible, but he duly failed me.

I passed the next time and flew straight to Lisbon the afternoon of the examination in London, hired a car and six hours later drove into tram stop on one of Lisbon’s famous hills.

It’s all been a bit dull ever since.