If only I could turn memories in my minds eye into photos. In the late seventies/early eighties scrapyards were full of Minis as well as other interesting stuff. Probably my earliest memory will be when we took a 1962 850 to a scrapyard in late 1974, having been robbed of useful bits. Whilst Colin - the friend with the SWB Landrover and winch was unloading it - my Dad pointed out a Mini so early it didn't have a clutch stop nut on the flywheel housing. I would have been 7 at that point but still remember it. A couple of years before, another very early Mini (pale grey) was parked up in the playground of the Play School I attended as a kind of activity climbing frame on wheels. After a couple off weeks, some brat got their hand caught in the door, so the caretaker took the door off.
Then it rained........the door went back on but eventually the doors were roped shut so the little bastards that we were just jumped on it instead.

It was removed not long after that.
I wonder if old Issigonis ever really appreciated how important the Mini was as a rite of passage for tearaways like me? It's a shame a few Mini heroes never went round to his place in Edgbaston and took him out on the piss.
You know - there are plenty of Mini books, but not one that is a collection of amusing personal anecdotes. It really is that kind of car.