THE BIGGEST hazard of driving home for Christmas – at least
according to Chris Rea’s 1988 hit – is being top to toe in tailbacks. Yet if it
wasn’t for a trusty AA man the other day, I wouldn’t have even made it that
far.
It’s typical Simister luck. After months of managing to
avoid a visit from the breakdown fairy, she would have to strike on the Friday
before Christmas, just as I was preparing to pack the boot with freshly-wrapped
presents and head home for the festive season.
Naturally, being the sort of chap who’d rather run a42-year-old car built by British Leyland and a 15-year-old French hatchback
acquired for less than most of my mates would pay for a decent shirt, I’m used
to the occasional thing going wrong. It’s just not the sort of thing you want
to happen on the day you’re driving home for Christmas!
In this case, the Peugeot 306 I’d bought a few weeks earlier
decided it only wanted to use three of its wheels for the long trip north – the
offside rear wheel had completely seized up, and nothing I did was freeing the
brakes off. Defeated, I dialled the fourth emergency service – and resigned
myself to being in for a long wait.
In all my time peddling automotive tat in lieu of a shiny
new car, I’ve had a distinctly mixed experience of all of Britain’s big breakdown recovery firms,
including one instance when it took a staggering ten hours to recover my oldMini from Carlisle. So – on the day when most
of the nation’s motorists were bound to be having the same festive intentions I
was – I was hardly expecting miracles.
Yet within half an hour the stricken 306 had been jacked up
and a chap in a hi-vis jacket had given me a diagnosis – the rear brake
cylinder had given up the ghost and needed replacing before it was going to be
safe for any pre-Christmas cruises up the A1. All of which meant finding a
garage who’d be prepared to do the job inside of a day.
My usual menders of choice were too busy mending an equally problem-prone
old hack – my colleague’s Saab 9000, no less – but Mr Hi-Vis had a mate at
another place, and after a quick phone call and a bit of arm-twisting said
garage agreed to getting the job done the same day. Sure enough, a couple of
hours later I was reunited with a Peugeot ready for the important job of
running the Simister family’s Christmas presents home. While I’ve had some
distinctly ropey breakdown recovery jobs in the past, this time my knight in
hi-vis armour genuinely was the difference between getting home and being
stranded at the office, 200 miles away.
So spare a thought for the chaps in their brightly-coloured
vans as they chug across the North
West this Christmas. Every driver they get back on
the move over the festive break is another Christmas that hasn’t been ruined by
the breakdown fairy.
Here’s to them – and Merry Christmas to you too, obviously!
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