Liverpool Stories
The stories on this site are not included in my book.
The tales are snapshots of my life in Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, and the echo chamber of the Mersey Sound that in the sixties resonated around the planet like an acoustic Tsunami. The stories cover a period of 50 odd years and so they touch on every aspect of my life from the rites of passage to the passing of youth. I hope you enjoy them.
19th nervous breakdown - This ain't no technological breakdown
By
John Williams
When I was about five years old, I had a Meccano Dinky model of an AA man on a motor-cycle. It was my saviour on those days when the usual outdoor pastimes of football, cricket, marbles or throwing stones at doors were ruled out because of inclement weather. My AA man fulfilled many roles because apart from being a roadside breakdown service he was, by turn, a motorised machine gunner churning up the fields of France, or a daredevil racer storming to victory after victory in the TT races on the Isle of Man. So it seemed the natural thing to do when, on passing my driving test some fifty years later, that I should join the Automobile Association.
In the first two years of my membership I had only one occasion to call on the services of those heroes of the hard shoulder, and that resulted in being towed by a rope. After five minutes of travelling in a vehicle that was swaying like a Hula dancer on Prozac my wife and youngest child nervously opted to sit with the AA man in his cab. We eventually made it home without any mishap and later that day, chastened by my utter lack of mechanical know how, I took up the offer of having my car insured with the AA for parts and labour. So far so good.
In December 2003 I was about to attempt a U-turn on Stanley road Bootle when I was hit by a private hire car that I had completely failed to see. I have never experienced such a sense of embarrassment as I did while I sat inside my car, trapped by the the door which had re-located some six inches. The whole affair had been my fault entirely because I had spent so much time looking at the oncoming traffic that I had assumed that the road behind me was as clear as it had been ten seconds earlier. The police arrived and I was breathalysed and found to be absolutely free of alcohol. They were quite sympathetic as they observed my shell-shocked shame and made no comment as I rescued my Churchill dog from the car which by then was being hauled aboard a breakdown truck. Fancy rescuing a worthless nodding dog and leaving about thirty pounds in loose change in the glove compartment!
As a consequence of my incompetent driving I ended up agreeing to attend a driver's awareness course as the alternative could have led to six points on my licence, and the law stated that after 2002 any new driver who accumulated six points would face an automatic ban and a re-occurrence of that nightmare called a driving test. What ensued was the most enjoyable two days I've had for a long time.
The first morning was spent analysing the most common causes of accidents, one of which was that acute stress can cause a kind of 'blindness' which can result in drivers not seeing obvious dangers. I remembered that at the time of the collision I was on my way to see my mother as she recovered from a hip operation.
In the afternoon session I climbed into a car driven by an elderly instructor and two obvious boy racers, Allan and Sam. The idea was that we three miscreants would take it in turn to drive under the watchful gaze of Eddie who would gently offer advice when he thought it necessary. Sam was the first to chance his arm and while he did so I was once again forcibly reminded that we should never be taken in by appearances because Allan, the shaven headed young man sitting next to me looked, at first sight, to be a founder member of Combat 88 and I must confess I was a bit disturbed by his presence. The truth is that he was a highly intelligent and personable graduate employed by the Inland Revenue. However, until I engaged him in conversation I was half expecting him to break into a chorus of the Horst Vessel song!
The final day of the two day course saw us driving to North Wales. By then we had each been bestowed with a nickname commensurate to our driving idiocyncrasies. Sam's cavalier approach to roundabouts earned him the soubriquet, 'Chicane', while Allan's general car handling, which appeared to me to be the motoring equivalent of rough sex, was known as 'Gear change'. It was the dear old instructor who supplied my nickname. As I raced around a sharp bend Eddie, his face flattened and distorted as it was pressed hard against the passenger window, gasped,
"I think...we'll call you...'G-force!"
A remark that was greeted by hoots of approval.
That day was memorable not just for the copious amount of laughter and coffee we indulged in because I learned a very important lesson from Eddie, which was that I should abandon my learner driver technique and focus as far ahead on the road as possible, a circumstance which gives drivers plenty of advance warning of hazards, rather than stare fixedly at the twenty yards in front of the vehicle, as is the case with most novices. I hope he and my other road buddies are all well.
By then I had been forced to change my car as my old one had been written off, but I had managed to find the same model and same year of car which had the added benefit of air conditioning and ten thousand fewer miles on the clock.
In May 2004 I was once again driving to my mother's house when I noticed a cloud of steam rising out of the bonnet, and even with my limited understanding of the combustible engine I knew something was amiss so I pulled into a garage forecourt at the beginning of West Derby Road and phoned the AA.
In the intervening half hour wait for the breakdown van I took to looking at my surroundings. I stared over at the registery office in Brougham Terrace and recalled with a blush the occasion of the marriage between my friends Robbie and Linda, when, with the sheer instinct of a slip fielder, I intercepted the tossed bouquet, much to the dismay of the gaggle of single women who were were anxiously waiting to claim it!
Then I looked down the hill to the pub where so many wedding guests had met up before the ceremony. It is called the 'Gregson's Well', and many years ago it stood directly opposite to another pub, long since demolished, that was also known as the 'Gregson's Well'!
Imagine the confusion that must often have occurred as the guests sought to find their party who had arranged to meet at the 'Gregson's Well'. Worse, imagine how many guests, who possibly had one drink too many, almost got run down as they navigated the road between the two pubs!
Many of the weddings took place in a room in the registery office that bore above the door, in gold script, the rubric, 'The Mosque', and I wondered how many brides realised that it was so called because it was the site of Britain's first Islamic mosque which closed in 1899. My musings were cut short by the arrival of the AA van and I looked forward to the reunion of my car and the open road.
The AA man looked under the bonnet at the sundered hose pipe and muttered something about not having a circlip to fix it. I looked in astonishment at the array of tools in his van and wondered why on earth he wouldn't have an item so commonplace. After much sucking of teeth he then changed tack and asserted that the problem was a blown head gasket and told me he would have to tow me home.
He fitted a metal tow bar to my car and half-heartedly listened as I tried to explain to him that I wanted to go home via Regent Road and asked him if he would he take one of the wider roads onto it given that I had no power steering while under tow. Before long I realised that he had his own agenda and I was slightly disturbed by this, to say nothing of the fact that while we were going up Scotland Road we were comfortably exceeding the speed limit. I hadn't felt so helpless since I boarded the Waltzer at New Brighton fairground thirty years earlier.
The AA driver stopped at the traffic lights at the junction of Stanley Road and Bankfield Street, which is very narrow and very busy. As the lights changed the AA van turned into Bankfield Street at such a lick that I found myself catapulted toward a sixteen wheeler that was waiting to turn into Stanley Road. Desperately trying to avoid a collision I carried out hernia inducing turns of the steering wheel but to no avail. My right wing smashed into the Lorry's bumper and we slewed to a halt.
I was shaking violently as the AA man got out of his cab and I roared at him,
"Why the fuck did you decide to turn into such a narrow space!!"
He simply shrugged and said,
"It's a bit late now..."
As we exchanged insurance details, the driver of the lorry asked exactly the same question as I had, and then looked on incredulously as the AA man tried to straighten the tow-bar, which was bent almost 90 degrees. I don't know quite how but we eventually got home which involved five more miles in the company of the driver from hell.
I was sunk in gloom as I knew I would lose my no claims bonus but, as he cleared up his tackle, the driver tried to console me by venturing the opinion that the lorry driver 'probably wouldn't report it'. His demeanor indicated that the blame was all mine, and in my ignorance I mutely accepted that judgement. It was only when I spoke to other people that they immediately raised the point that the AA man was in charge of a tow and that just as a caravan owner is legally responsible for his caravan then so surely must the chap from the Automobile Association must be responsible for the vehicle he was towing.
Eventually Churchill's lawyers sorted it out and I was paid in full for my injuries and the damage to my car. However, before the settlement, which took a year to achieve, I had to get my car fixed and I was glad that I had taken out my AA insurance for parts and labour and was faced with a massive repair bill for a replacement head gasket. What was it the poet said?
"Where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise."
The AA insurers informed me that because I had changed my car without informing them the insurance was invalid! I tried in vain to argue that the model and year were exactly the same, but it was no use, the weasely bastards were adamant. I was uninsured.
Churchill's repair service, who were only obliged to repair the damaged wing, returned my car a few days later and, much to my surprise, the driver asked me to drive my car off the transporter. I blurted out,
"But it can't be driven...the head gasket has gone!"
"Oh no it hasn't lad," he replied, "The only thing wrong with this car was the hose."
He was right too. The feller from the AA just hadn't been interested in rooting out a sixpenny circlip, which would have solved everything without the trauma that followed!
I joined the RAC immediately, mentally bidding a regretful adieu to my childhood AA motorcycle hero, and vowed never again to have anything to do with the Associationof Anal retentives!