Page 55 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

Her only concern was for the yellow monster that had filled her vision and mind with
unaccountable terror.

The nightmare then began. The damage was stupefying.

“Hebe” was now stood just inside the gateway with carriage attached as normal.

The church gateway had not been sufficiently wide to allow the carriage through
when we had first arrived! Things had now changed.

CHANGES
The right hand gatepost of solid stone and some four feet square and five feet high, was
now lying flat inside the churchyard and its gate still attached, beside it.

It had been pushed over, quite intact by the pressure of the carriage body as it twisted
thorough an acute 90 degree angle, propelled by the horse.

The off side, previously beautiful, wooden carriage body was to say the least badly
damaged. The door would not open.

But there was even worse to see. All four rubber tyres from each of the wheels were lying
on the ground at drunken angles.
By now the horse was calm and happy to be facing away from the road.

Our major problem as I could see was in getting the bride back to her reception two miles
away in a damaged carriage with only one working door and no tyres!
I left Helen to speak sweet nothings to Hebe and began my search for something to help
me remount the tyres.

Now a little explanation.
Wooden horse drawn carriage wheels have either the older iron rims around the wooden
wheel. These are incredibly noisy and vibrate in a foul way as they were designed to cope
with unmetalled roads…….or

More modern sprung carriages had a slotted clincher rim system attached to the outside of
the wheel. The specially designed rubber tyre is designed and extruded with a thinner line
of rubber of either side of the tyre itself. The whole fits snugly in the grooved rim. But it has
to be slid into the groove from one end with plenty of lubricant and gradually slid, in that
groove, completely round the wheel.

BACK IN WYBERTON
We had neither lubricant, a jack for the wheels or time on our side. I estimated that now we
had about 20 minutes before the bride emerged from the Church for the group