Page 73 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"
P. 73
I kept my foot on the throttle knowing the front wheel drive 4L has no equal when taking a
corner at speed. I dipped my headlights and disappeared from the view of the car behind.
I negotiated another couple of bends, crossed over the drain at the next bridge and began
the last lap home down a road that runs straight for 7 miles into my own village.
(Picture right of part of that “seven mile straight”.)
Lights soon appeared again behind and
caught me quite quickly. The middle one
was Blue!
I stopped and the constable got out.
“You know these roads quite well don’t
you sir!” he began. He was quite new to
the area and he didn’t.
Evidently he had managed to prevent
himself dyking the police car only at the
last moment as he arrived at THAT sharp
corner! He was not amused!
He and his colleague had been watching with interest my efforts with repairing the lorry
and were curious about the female driver. It took me a full ten minutes to explain and
satisfy their ‘curiosity’.
In the nicest possible way I had to emphasise that as they were catching me rapidly down
that first, minor straight road, I had no way of knowing who they were, and it was 1a.m!
The last Wonderbun Story................
THE DUSTCART
‘Wonderbun’ made several further trips to Ford at Dagenham in the next week or two but
the incident with the dustcart literally put her off the road for a few days and by the time
she was fixed the ‘tyre’ episode was over!
We were coming back from the Ford factory, just myself and ‘wonderbun’ this time. It was
a busy road just on the London outskirts and a dustcart was parked half on and half off the
pavement just ahead and on my side of the road.
The dustmen were doing their usual thing but as the road was not wide the driver had
chosen to pull part way off the road to allow traffic to pass. I was none too attentive and
the whole episode was my own fault; I had started early and by the time I would get home
my statutory 12 hours driving/ working limit would be up.
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