LONDON: VOLVO

PHOTO: M HODGSON

This Volvo Amazon was captured at Strand on the Green, Chiswick. I'm usually the last person to swoon over classic cars, but my parents once drove a Volvo 340 and I was surprised to see living proof they weren't always so ugly.

My grandmother was born a couple of terraces from here, when the cafe on the left was still a pub. She and my grandfather held their wedding reception here in the '50s. "The Steam Packet" is just visible in flaked letters on the side wall.

Strand on the Green was once a fishing village and several of my grandmother's older relatives worked on the river. The site of an old repair dock is still obvious by way of the great beams of wood on the river bed nearby.