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One afternoon in the summer of 1962, my mother drove into the pub. The car was a 10-year-old Daimler and the pub was The Old Fisherman in Shabbington on the border of Buckinghamshire and Oxford.

A narrow road lead straight down from the top of the hill, with a steep bank rising on the right-hand side and a drop into the River Thame on the other. At the bottom, the road turned left over a narrow bridge, with a barn immediately ahead and the Fisherman to the right. Half way down the hill, she put her foot on the brake pedal but found it was flat on the floor; then a cyclist began to cross the bridge from the other direction.

My mother’s first thought was to drive into the barn, but fearing she might demolish it entirely she turned right and hit the corner of the pub, coming to a halt just in front of the bar. Fortunately, being mid-afternoon, it was empty. Both my mother and the elkhound who had been sitting on the passenger seat were unhurt, but the dog never really enjoyed car journeys after that.

Driving down the hill 45 years later, the road and the bridge have hardly changed, the narrow river still lined with pollard willows that appear not to have grown at all, but the village, the pub and the car we are driving in are very different.

The Daimler was heavy, slow and, even in its time, old fashioned. It was one of the last cars to have running-boards. It was very comfortable, though, smelling of burnt oil and old leather and the doors shut with a satisfying clunk. Due to its fluid flywheel, it would creep without any judder from stationary to a funereal walking pace and then proceed without undue haste to a maximum of about 75mph at which it could glide effortlessly all day, or until the radiator boiled.

Acceleration and braking were not its strong points (nor, at less than 15 miles to the gallon, was fuel consumption) but on that afternoon it would have looked rather grand having just been resprayed, very dark green with a fine gold line hand-painted along the bonnet. It was easy in those days to have cars repaired: what was then known as Morris’s was often on strike and its craftsmen were happy to earn extra money, taking more pride in their work than they ever did at Cowley.

In those days, the Fisherman was still a rough country pub, although different from what it would have been even 30 years before. Many of the regulars had moved to the area after leaving the services to find work at the car factory, in the early days walking across the fields to the village of Tiddington to catch the train nine miles to Cowley, later driving their own cars. (The railway track crossed what is now the M40 at the Waterstock turn. The bridge — and what is now left of it — has always attracted political graffiti: 50 years ago it read “Help Hungary”; now it is “Stop the War”).

Other pub regulars still worked on the land, including an old shepherd with a white beard and a smock, surely one of the last of his kind in the home-counties. Old and new residents drank happily side by side and played together in the pub’s cricket team. My parents liked it for the friendliness of all the locals - most Saturday lunchtimes in the school holidays my sister and I would sit outside in the car and occasionally be brought bottles of lukewarm Vimto and packets of crisps with twists of salt in blue wrappers.

The pub was owned by an Oxford brewery called Morrells, later bought up and closed by one of the bigger chains. Bitter cost 1/3d a pint but a much stronger draught barley wine called College Ale was only sold in half pints and cost much more. The inside of the pub made few concessions to comfort: a bare floor, a couple of wooden benches, shiny smoke-stained walls and chipped enamel advertisements for cigarettes.

The landlord was a man called Dick, who in those days was considered a “character”, although now in less generous times would be regarded as a dangerous alcoholic whom no brewery would allow in charge of a pub. He belonged in a novel by Surtees or Hardy, communicating in grunts and occasional old-fashioned oaths like “dammy!”.

Tuesday was market day in the town of Thame, three miles away, where the pubs were open all afternoon. Dick would arrive early, park his pony and trap outside one of the pubs, drink all day then climb in the back of the trap, go to sleep and his pony would bring him home. In winter when the river flooded and the pub was cut off, he would retire upstairs for the duration with a barrel of College.

After the accident, the wall was not repaired until the following spring, the brewery merely tacking a piece of plastic sheeting over the hole, and through the cold winter the loyal regulars would come down to the pub bringing lumps of coal to put on the small fire.

The incident with the Daimler weighed on Dick’s mind and his behaviour became more erratic. Walking betwen the bar and the usually empty saloon, he became expert at raising a glass twice to the whisky optics and knocking it back almost without anyone noticing. He also became convinced that his wife, a blameless white-haired old lady, was having affairs with some of the regulars whom he referred to by names like “The snake” and “The viper”. The pub was never the same after he left.

Forty-five years later, The Old Fisherman is still a pub but most of its revenue comes from food (it was crisps or nothing in Dick’s day). The place has been smartened up, themed on fishing, the walls covered with Victorian fishing prints that might appear to have been there for over a century rather than part of a recent makeover. The old barn has been converted into an extra dining room.

The menu belongs a particular time and market niche. A dish like “New Zealand green-lipped mussels au gratin” would not often have been found on a menu 10 years ago, nor is it likely to be in 10 years time. The Old Fisherman serves better that the average pub food — definitely no “’n’ chips” — but it does not quite aspire to the status of “gastropub”. “Char-grilled” occurs five times on the menu but “locally sourced” not at all. The rump of lamb comes with “merlot & mint sauce” and not “merlot & mint jus”. They serve a range of Irish and liqueur coffees, but what is a “floater coffee”? It doesn’t sound very inviting.

Portions are large and business brisk. The landlord looked sober and hard working. I told him my mother had once driven into the pub. “Oh yes,” he said with certain finality. I never discovered whether the incident had become part of local folk lore or had been forgotten entirely.

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