There was a group of us from Valley who, thanks to John Wilkinson,
were always visiting Warrington. It wasn’t
party central but there were quite a number of female flavoured ladies there,
which is enough of a reason for any red blooded, young, single, male to visit. I do remember being on my way to visit one young
lady, Karen, when my car broke down.
When I say broke down, what happened was, is that I had left the
motorway and was navigating along some country roads. There was a clunk, and although the car was
still making motor car noises, there didn’t seem to be any power.
As luck would have it I was still freewheeling along the road
when I saw a garage. I pulled in and was
welcomed by the standard hand wiping mechanic.
“We don’t sell petrol here,” he said, as he walked towards me. “I don’t need any,” I replied, adding. “My car has broken down.” As he inspected the vehicle, Paddy’s old Vauxhall
Victor, I telephoned Karen who said she would come and collect me. Seems that the gear box had fallen off, which
I understand from the mechanic, was quite important for the machine to work
properly.
Karen arrived and it was agreed that rather than try and
source a replacement gear box, the mechanic would weld the old one back together
and back on to the car. This allowed me
to continue with my short break and the important task of enjoying myself. I promise you I tried my hardest to enjoy
myself and you know, I probably had a very good time, but as with all good
times they have to come to an end.
I was at Warrington train station and calculated that I would
be late back to Valley and therefore late for work. The days of scrubbing the white lines outside
the guardroom, with a toothbrush while getting screamed at, were far behind me
and I didn’t want to get Jankers again so I telephoned air traffic to warn
them. Luckily Paddy Reardon answered the
telephone so I thought I would explain that it was the car he had sold me that
had broken down, therefore theoretically it was his fault that I would be late
for work. “Hello Paddy,” I yelled, down
the phone as the train was pulling in. “I’m…” “I’m
very busy!” shouted Paddy, although why he was shouting I have no idea. “I’ll call you back!” After which he hung up.
I didn’t think that he was telepathic so he wouldn’t have known
that I was at Warrington train station and therefore couldn’t call me
back. I couldn’t call him back, as the conductor
chappie was waving his flag and blowing his whistle to indicate that the train
was about to pull out, either that or he was desperate for a pee. I had no choice but to get on board and head
for North Welsh Wales.
Luckily for me Paddy remembered that I had telephoned him and
accepted that I had tried to warn him that I would be late for work, so no charges
were laid against me. I didn’t have long
to go with my six months of impressing the boss so I didn’t want to ruin
that. Thankfully with the constant to
and froing from Warrington, it was easy enough for me to get a lift back to
Warrington and collect my repaired car.
I don’t know why but I enjoyed driving all sorts of vehicles,
just to get a feel of the vehicle. If I was
on duty over a weekend I would always pop over to the fire station and see if
they would allow me to race one of their fire engines along the runway. Great fun.
And every time they got a new flavour of vehicle I would be there asking
permission to give it a blast on the airfield.
One day they got a sort of range rover type rescue truck, Crash
One. Something about red machines, that went very fast, always brought out the good ol boy in me. Having put it through its paces on the
airfield, I returned to the fire section to see that they had taken delivery of
a new Gemini rescue craft and were about to head for the beach and take it out
on its maiden voyage.
Hanging on to the steering wheel of a fire truck as it
hammers along a runway is great fun, but to give a rescue boat some wellie was something
I was up for. I helped the firemen
attach the Gemini on its trailer to the new Crash One and informed air traffic
that the fire section had asked me to help them out with this exercise. We went off to the beach, which was just the
far side of the airfield. I parked up as
I cleared the sand dunes and hit the beach, I didn’t want to find any soft
sand.
I walked down to the water’s edge where everyone was giving
their opinion as to how the craft should be launched. This is what happens when you ask civilians
to do something. Had they been military flavoured
then there would have been a man in charge and there would have been written instructions,
in triplicate, to follow. We got the Gemini
into the water and were reversing back into the waves to float it off, when Crash
One began to sink in the soft sand. Could have been something to do with the five hundred gallons of water on its back, although I'm no expert.
As this was a new vehicle no one was exactly sure how to get
it into four wheel drive, which we all believed was the proper way to free the
vehicle. I was confused that a six wheeled vehicle would have four wheel drive, but then what did I know? Although it may already have
been in four wheel drive, we weren’t sure.
My land rover was too light to be of any assistance, so another crash
vehicle was sent for. With the new and
much larger crash vehicle on the beach and tow rope attached, an attempt was
made to extricate the range rover and the Gemini. Being much larger meant that the rescue
vehicle was much heavier than the range rover so it too began to sink. The tow rope was disconnected and the large
crash vehicle was removed from the beach.
What happened next I found quite amusing.
Because Crash One was not available for duty, as it was stuck
in the sand, Valley had to downgrade its operational status until Crash One was
recovered. Specialist equipment would
have to be brought out. A report would
have to be made. Forms would have to be
filled out, despite the fact that they were civilians they were employed by the
ministry of defence so would have as much paperwork, in triplicate, as we
would. Why were heavy vehicles sinking in soft
sand? Why had no research been carried
out to find a suitable and safe place to launch the craft? I suggested that a good excuse would have
been to claim that as a rescue craft, you couldn’t pick and choose where accidents
would occur. Therefore to make your training
as realistic as possible you should launch in as many different places as
possible and actually experience various different setbacks which you would
have to learn to overcome.
No, the firemen decided that it was my entire fault, that I
was a Jonah. I had brought them bad
luck. Needless to say I wasn’t invited
to join in with any fun and games at the fire section any more. And as for the range rover and the Gemini. I don’t know what happened there. I left them to it as they all seemed to have
been beaten with the stupid stick, as far as I know they could still be there arguing
about the best way to free the vehicle.
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