Here’s another extract from Screw It, I’ll Take The Elevator
About the time of my twenty-seventh birthday in November 2000 there was still a problem with my car. By that time it was stalling once a day.
Ten days before I started at the fire brigade, prior to a fund raising commitment due to start in the afternoon in central Brighton and which was likely to extend into the evening, I arranged to meet my friend Stuart in the Churchill Square shopping centre for lunch. I had time to do this before meeting up with my Prince’s Trust chums.
On my way to meet Stuart, turning off Brighton seafront into the road which leads to the side of Churchill Square, my car stalled. After restarting my car, I went a few hundred yards up the hill, past the shopping centre’s multi-storey car park, before my car stalled again. More accurately, the car conked out! The engine wouldn’t restart and smoke started to escape from under the bonnet and drift upwards, ominously.
The commotion quickly gathered a crowd of onlookers. Before I knew it, somebody had dialled 999 and called the Fire Brigade!
People were telling me to get out of my car fast! I didn’t think it was that bad and replied, “It’s alright, it’s only a bit of smoke.”
While I was on the phone, telling Stuart what had happened and where I was, I heard the siren of a fast approaching fire engine. Stuart arrived just as the firemen were putting out the dying embers of my smouldering car!
I thanked the firemen and said, “You might find this hard to believe but I start working with you guys the week after next!”
Stuart and I decided to have lunch in the adjacent pub, whilst we waited for a recovery truck to take my car to the Renault garage and I remember it being a very funny lunch!
I’m not a mechanic and might be wrong here. I think all that started to smoulder was the rubber seal around the engine. Having said that, I don’t even know if car engines have rubber around them! Obviously there was an underlying problem with my car. Had my car been able to travel a few more yards, I would have got it into a parking space.
After my car had been taken away, I had a good story to tell people while fund raising. That evening I went home on the bus with Claudia, who also lived in Shoreham.
The next day the Renault garage was extremely apologetic for not having spotted the problem with my car sooner. They fixed my car in double quick time, ready for me to start my job with the fire brigade.
You can get your copy of Screw It, I’ll Take The Elevator HERE & NOW
