'Home!' answered Miss Havisham as she moved the hand throttle. The car leaped forward across the grassy courtyard and gathered speed.

'To Great Expectations?' I asked as Miss Havisham steered in a broad circuit, fiddling with the levers in the centre of the massive steering wheel.

'Not my home,' she retorted, 'yours!'

With another deep growl and a lurch the car accelerated rapidly forward – but to where I was not sure; in front of us lay the broken drawbridge and stout stone walls of the castle.

'Fear not!' yelled Havisham above the roar of the engine. 'I'll read us into the Outland as simply as blinking!'

We gathered speed. I expected us to jump straight away, but we didn't. We carried on towards the heavy castle wall at a speed not wholly compatible with survival.

'Miss Havisham?' I asked, my voice tinged with fear.

'I'm just trying to think of the best words to get us there, girl!' she replied cheerfully.

'Stop!' I yelled as the point of no return came and went in a flash.

'Let me see …' muttered Havisham, thinking hard, the accelerator still wide open.

I covered my eyes. The car was running too fast for me to jump out and a collision seemed inevitable. I grasped the side of the car's body and tensed as Miss Havisham took herself, me and two tons of automobile through the barriers of fiction and into the real world. My world.

I opened my eyes again. Miss Havisham was studying a road map as the Higham Special swerved down the middle of the road. I grabbed the steering wheel as a milk float swerved into the hedge.

'I won't use the M4 in case the C of G get wind of it,' she said, looking around. 'We'll use the A419 – are we anywhere close?'

I recognised where we were instantly. Just north of Swindon outside a small town called Highworth.

'Continue round the roundabout and up the hill into the town,' I told her, adding: 'But it's not your right of way, remember.'

It was too late. To Miss Havisham, her way was the right way. The first car braked in time but the one behind it was not so lucky – it drove into the rear of the first with a crunch. I held on tightly as Miss Havisham accelerated rapidly away up the hill into Highworth. I was pressed into my seat and for a single moment, perched above two tons of bellowing machinery, I suddenly realised why Havisham liked this sort of thing – it was, in a word, exhilarating.

'I've only borrowed the Special from the count,' she explained. 'Parry Thomas will take delivery of it next week and aim to lift the speed record for himself. I've been working on a new mix of fuels; the A419 is straight and smooth – I should be able to do at least a ton eighty on that.'

'Turn right on to the B4019 at the Jesmond,' I told her, 'after the lights turn to greeeeeeen.'