the end of the road ....

......  or relative adventures in time and space

I passed my driving test 60 years ago.  Hard to believe, now I think about it.

I grew up in the south-east of England. I and a group of friends would regularly meet up on a Friday night at a country pub, not far from home.  At about 9 o’clock - having had sufficient to eat and drink - we would jump into our cars and drive the 40 or so miles through the dark and winding roads of the North Downs and South Downs, to go ten-pin bowling in Brighton and Hove on the South Coast.  More food and drink and we’d not get home much before 3.00am. I thought nothing of it back then. 

I’ve owned and driven a lot of cars since then. I’ve used them for work and I’ve used them for leisure.  More recently it’s left me with a love/hate relationship with our 4-wheeled friends.

Two cars from my past stand out - a VW Beetle in the 1970s and more recently a Skoda Yeti.  More than one, in fact.

The box on wheels - because that is essentially what the Yeti was - took us around the UK and Europe in comfort.  With the back seats removed, and the bikes safely inside, we’ve had two-wheel  and 4-wheel adventures in Scotland, England, France and Spain.

Again with the back seats removed, but this time with guitars and amplifiers inside, we and two other Yetis, also full of guitars and amps - and a double bass - spent five summers playing various gigs in Germany.  

Small on the outside, but spacious inside, it was our TARDIS.  We eventually swapped it for a small EV when we moved to live in a town.  

Now comes the negative bit.  We’re surrounded by BIG cars in tiny streets and tiny car parking spaces.  It wasn’t until I got stuck on my bike in a traffic jam one morning, that I fully began to appreciate the problem of exhaust fumes. I never notice it when I’m out on country roads. 

Milton Keynes, once a pleasure to drive round (when you understood how the grid system works), has became a race track.  No quarter is given at roundabouts.

I read the other day that The Searchers (one of the original Liverpool bands from my youth) had decided, after 68 years, to stop touring.  Their final show will be Glastonbury, this summer. Apart from age (they’re all in their 80s now) they find driving a problem. John McNally, who formed the band when he was 16 in 1957, says: “The traffic is now an absolute nightmare.”

We have a similar sort of problem.  The majority of our audience are about the same age as us.  They don’t want to come out and then drive home in the dark. They feel safer driving in daylight.  So we now tend to do afternoon or early evening gigs.  And that suits me too.