The first sniff of work, after a three-minutes conference call lowered the curtain on a career spanning three decades, was as a transport correspondent, specialising in cars.
It wasn't so much an invitation to apply that was easy to refuse as one that was impossible to take seriously. What I know about cars can be written in triplicate on the back of a bus ticket, still leaving plenty of room for important notes.
While I have unbounded admiration for this manifestation of man's creative ingenuity, the motor car represents nothing more to me than a way of getting about, and comes a long way behind the train and even feet as a preferred means of transport. Le Mans may figure heavily in the geographical origins of la famille Salut! but motor sport has never seemed sport at all, more a kind of industrial exhibition.
But I know what I like. And a pleasant day spent in the elegant little resort of Sanary, just west of Toulon, was capped by the unexpected appearance of a fleet of American limousines, trucks and sports cars from a bygone age.
To leave a bunch of rough-and-ready locals playing boules and take in tranquil harbour and bay views before encountering gleaming vintage cars is to pass from one essentially old-time culture to another. When the tannoy announcement came to warn an errant driver to move his car or else, it wasn't an old Ford or Cadillac that was causing offence, but a hapless, workaday Golf.
I will share some of the scenes I witnessed. Bill Taylor would have captured them more effectively, but he wasn't around so it was down to me and my little Panasonic DMC-FX07 to do the necessary.
What you must also accept, I am afraid, is that I did not approach the task in the manner of a cub reporter sent to collect the names of mourners at a dignitary's funeral. You will need to use your own knowledge or imagination to identify each model.
It might also be borne in mind that my mind was not entirely on the task in hand, since I was still savouring the after taste of a very enjoyable plateau des fruits de mer at the Hotel de la Tour, built rather cleverly around an old tower, the top of which bursts proudly through the roof. 
Good as it was, however, it was not the best seafood platter I have come across. Without threatening to embark on a curry-style search for the winning example, I can say that by far the finest such spread was served in, of all places, Sunderland.
That is not the start of an argument that Wearside is the new culinary capital of Western Europe. We were lucky enough to be guests of friends who have the means to send their fishmonger out into the North Sea to provide the ingredients of a royal feast.
The first time we dined with them, we were on our way to a friend's wedding, also in Sunderland, and I recall that the refreshments at the reception extended to chicken drumsticks, pizza portions and sausage rolls.
One last thing, far from Wearside and also from Route 66. If my headline had you guessing, it was a gentle reminder of why I list certain postings under the sub-heading Salut! Huit-Trois.
The Var, in which Sanary and my present home ground lies, is the French département bearing the number 83, which I have chosen to style huit-trois in the manner of the more famous p- or infamous - neuf-trois (93) of Seine St Denis. 
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