An MG Midget parked on a residential Edinburgh street during the Beast From the East in 2018

I had often seen and admired this car while out walking in Portobello. Some people like their vintage cars immaculate – concourse ready, as the phrase goes. I go more for the “gently distressed” look, so this car immediately appealed. The ill-fitting hood was far from water-tight, and leaked any time it rained. The Rostyle wheels – an expensive factory-fitted option – looked delightfully out of place on this classic British sports car. And the black polyurethane bumpers – a standard fitting from 1974 onwards – were nowhere near as attractive as the chrome bumpers of earlier models.

I often meant to photograph it but never got round to it. It would just have been a snapshot. A quick grab-shot of an attractive old car, shoehorned into an undersized parking space. Until the Beast From the East happened. This was a fearsome storm that struck the UK in February 2018, closing down shops, offices, and public transport with its heavy snowfall.

This much snow is rare in my part of Scotland, so I wrapped up warmly and grabbed my current favourite camera – a Minolta Dynax 4 with 24-50mm f4.0 lens. I loaded it with the only film I had available at the time, which was the budget Kodak Color Plus, and I headed for the beach.

And finally, I struck lucky with the MG Midget. For once, it was parked with space to spare all around it. The virgin snow revealed no tyre tracks. The slightly-askew hood was letting the snow into the cabin. And the Rostyle wheels revealed a glimpse of the black tarmac beneath. For me, this was an important part of the story. This was no Scandinavian scene, where the snow had built up over months. This was south-central Scotland, where heavy snowfall is a rarity and convertible cars don’t need to be garaged over winter.

The Color Plus film suits this image perfectly. The soft colours and lazy grain accentuate the vintage feel, and the falling snow softens the whole image. I wonder whatever happened to that car?