Cars

Well, summer passes, and the long, dark days of winter arrive.

The summer romances have gone, with some exceptions, so normality returns.

I feel that at this point, although all the guys who had bikes, long hair, and were local, for some reason, the local girls were not prepared to wait for our summer romances to finish, and, for some reason, I know not why, found the male Swedish students attractive and had the occasional fling or two with the Swedish boys.

Oh well, as the saying goes, 'What is good for the Goose is good for the Gander.'

Back then, pubs were pubs.

You went there to drink, meet friends, and hopefully pick up a young lady, and don't give me any sexist crap; the young ladies were there for the same reason. Well, not to pick up young ladies, although some were, but to meet someone to spend the rest of their life with or at least the rest of the night.

Guys were the same.

Basically, you went out, had a few drinks, and hoped to get lucky, i.e., sex.

How else did people meet? No internet, no Facebook, etc.

The problem was our hectic social life in our village, and romantic meetings could only happen on Friday or Saturday nights.

Possibly, but most girls did not go out on Sundays.

Strangely enough, all the good-looking birds I asked out to watch me play Cribbage on a Tuesday at the local social club so they could go to the bar and get the drinks, so as not to interrupt my concentration, were always washing their hair that night.

Same with Darts night Wednesday, Pool night (not swimming, the game) Thursday, Snooker Monday.

All these sports were inter-pub leagues and high excitement.

I can only assume that the local young ladies at the time could not take the tension, the stress, but they all did have really clean hair!

Let's be honest; if the film with John Travolta was called Sunday night fever, there is a strong possibility it would not have been such a hit.

Still, as I said, pubs served beer, pub grub was a bag of crisps and a pickled onion or if you were really upmarket a pickled egg.

The television was four channels, and not the kind of things you would want to watch in your late teens.

Now with our hectic winter social life, and us playing in these major sporting fixtures in the week, a problem arose.

Transport to away matches, and also to the discos, many of which were at the other end of the island.

It was normal to pile out of the pub at 11 to go to The Babaloo, Barnys, The Birdcage, etc., with a fair few mates. As transport was limited, we normally had two in the boot, four or five in the back, two in the front seat, and the driver, and all this after about eight pints.

We must have been mad!

So cars had to be bought for the long, dark winter months before the bikes ruled again.

But not much point in spending good money on a car, just one that has a few months' MOT before it went to the scrappy.

All were rust-free; no charge for the rust as that was what kept most of them together.

Now obviously, these old wrecks (I wish I had kept them now; worth a fortune) kept falling to bits.

Al's car had the engine kept in place by some wooden wedges and lumps of four by two.

Bernie's car, as I have said, had no radiator but was ok for short haul, pub work.

I had invested in an A35 van with windows, £12. Petrol was five gallons a pound.

One morning it wasn't that cold or raining, so we went to visit some friends.

We ended up at a friend's house that he shared with fellow bikers, and like us, also had an old wreck for winter, and from memory, the exhaust had come loose, so John was under the car.

However, being smarter than the average bear, he had found a big cardboard box, cut it up, and stuck it underneath to lay on.

He knew we were there, so pulled himself out for a chat.

Unfortunately, he had not taken the big staples out of the cardboard, and one stuck in his head, and I mean seriously went in.

Owing to the fact he was laying on the cardboard, mostly under the car, he was stuck.

He was bleeding a bit; then Butch had a brilliant idea, cut the cardboard round his head, and take him to Doc's, who would sort it out.

After much hacking with knives, John was released, but the cardboard was hanging over his head like a hat from the Foreign Legion.

He was duly put in a car and delivered to Doc's door at lunchtime.

After much banging, Doc answered the door, obviously having been interrupted mid-lunch, and for a second looked not too happy until he saw John with the cardboard 'hat' stapled to his head.

Doc just dissolved into laughter; he was literally holding himself up on the doorway.

Obviously, Doc knew all of us which made it all the better for him.

Wiping the tears away, he took John by the hand and told him to come inside, but Doc had a sense of humour and instead of going into his surgery took John into the dining room to show his family, 'the funniest thing I have ever seen in all my years.'

Doc cut the staples out and a few stitches sorted it, and even John saw the funny side of it, but to this day has never lived it down.

What a great man Doc was; regrettably, owing to our sad litigation society, his likes have now gone.

But I doubt you will find anyone my age in our village who would say a bad word about Doc.

One day I was working with Paul, and he let a disc cutter hit his hand, big cut, loads of blood, but just up the road from Doc.

We took him down, and Doc washed it off, then took out his old pipe tobacco tin where he kept his needles and thread, threaded the needle, sterilized it then started to stitch the cut back together.

Doc did not believe in local anesthetic; in his opinion, if you were stupid enough to have an accident, that was your problem.

He had a point!

Anyhow, Paul is squealing as the needle is going in and out, and Doc puts the needle down.

'Bloody hell, Paul, I have kids in here who make less fuss than you.'

But Paul had a quick reply.

'Yes, Doc, but they get a sweetie.'

Without a word, Doc got up, got his sweetie jar he kept for the small kids, gave Paul one, then said,

'Now, can you shut up'!

More waffle next time; hope you like it, drop us an email if you do, if you don't like it, don't read it.

My son who puts this on tells me we could be on Google soon; fame and fortune await.

So we don't get bogged down; I will do a few fishing tales next.