My first car: Alison Strauss

My first car was a yellow Mini. I bought it from the brother of an ex-boyfriend for £50 – I think he felt vicariously guilty, hence the bargain price.

The tape player didn’t work so I used to drive around Brixton with a ghetto blaster sitting beside me on the passenger seat and the manual windows rolled down, thinking I was the coolest thing. The car had a manual choke which I had to hold out with a clothes peg until the engine had warmed up, and every night I had to take the battery out and charge it up in the kitchen, reinstalling it in the morning when I’d be ready to go. I loved that car.

Alison Strauss is director of the Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema in Bo’ness, which returns for a third year in 2013. www.falkirkcommunitytrust.org/venues/hippodrome/silent-cinema/