I learnt to drive as a teenager in the Israeli army on tanks as well as ordinary vehicles. I had been brought up in such poverty it was hard to think I would ever own a car of my own.

As a child I used to gaze into the window of a toyshop, mooning over a tin jeep made in China that my mother couldn’t afford to buy me.

You can imagine my joy when at the age of 23 in 1969 I bought a second-hand Triumph Spitfire with the first money from my spoon-bending performances. With its canvas roof and the good weather in Israel, it was a dream.

Unfortunately it nearly killed me.

I picked up a hitchhiker one day — a young girl soldier — and we were driving downhill into Nazareth when I discovered I had no brakes. We gathered speed, up to 45mph. All I could do was ram the wheels into the pavement, which I did repeatedly, and after about four minutes it came to a halt just before we would have hit a building. Understandably the girl couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

That wasn’t the end of the story. When the car was fixed I was visiting Hanna, my girlfriend, and left the Spitfire on a hill outside her home. I know I parked it properly — in gear, the brake on and the wheel jammed against the kerb.

As soon as I walked into Hanna’s garden I saw her brother Shipi holding an air rifle. I took it and quickly shot a little bird. At that moment there was a huge crash. We ran out and found the Spitfire embedded in a tree at the bottom of the hill — an obvious write-off.

It was almost like an invisible hand had released the brake. It was a sign from God. I shouldn’t have a killed one of his creatures and I never did again. It also led me to stop eating meat. Now when people ask me why I’m a vegetarian they think I’m joking when I say it’s because of a car.

Uri Geller’s website is at www.uri-geller.com