A Man`s MAN

It came as quite a shock, the information my good lady wife imparted to me from a certain women`s magazine she was reading.  Apparently, because of the nature of their work and the separation this entails, sea captains sometimes take their wives along on voyages.  My reaction, I have to admit, wasn`t too convincing - it was very sensible, I said, for these middle aged men, travelling to the flesh spots of the world, thousands of miles from any of their wives` friends who might recognize them, to be accompanied in such a way.  The inevitable result was that my wife immediately suggested she accompany me, in my lorry, on one of my `voyages`.

When the morning of our trip came, I quickly packed my holdall: spare jeans and a few T- shirts; a handful of socks and pants; coffee and powdered milk; money for breakfast at a cafe each morning and a few sandwiches at night; laptop and my Bay Watch DVD collection - The Box Set, as I call it.  And when, at least an hour later, my wife first appeared downstairs with a bag not much bigger than my own, my relief must have been obvious.  But my joy was short lived, as she announced this was simply hand luggage; her suitcase was too heavy for her to lift and I was to fetch it from the bedroom.

A brief explanation about bunks – roomy, happy, sleepy - and their arch enemy, luggage, was met with considerable incredulity as it became apparent that I had missed an essential point about our journey.  This was to be a pleasant break, not an ordeal; not some sort of macho, sweaty, unwashed smelly and most of all, cramped, expedition that only a man could enjoy. We, she explained, would be staying in hotels.  We, I said, don`t make money by staying in hotels.  There was no need to add the, `staying in hotels`, she told me, rather cruelly.  And that was that: if We were to make no money, she had decided, We would do it in comfort.  I loaded the lorry, vowing never to be unkind to a mule as long as I live, and We, my good lady wife, her wardrobe and I, headed East along the A roads of England.  

I was using a rented MAN tractor unit at that time, on a temporary contract with a curtain sided trailer.  It was easy work.  The journeys were short by my usual standards, just a few nights away at a time, and totally within the UK.  I was happily back in the land of transport cafes with English breakfasts of fried slices, black pudding, fried eggs, rashes of bacon, and mugs of tea.  “We`ll pull in at the next cafe”, I suggested to my perfumed passenger.  “Why”? She asked.  I glanced at her - and yes, she was serious. “For breakfast”, I told her.  “But you had toast this morning”, she said, “I`ve made us a cheese sandwich each for lunch, they`re in the cool box, we`ll wait until then”.  “We need to stop”, I informed her, “it`s the law”.  We`ve been going twenty-five minutes”, she said.  “I need a loo”, I tried.  “There`s bound to be a filling station before long", she said. "I`ll be able to browse the magazines while you`re in the toilet”.

The day rumbled on in sympathy with my stomach, which only received the cheese sandwich and a packet of crisps (salt & vinegar, family size) I had bought at the garage to keep me from fainting at the wheel.  “No wonder your seat in the Renault is so dirty”, she said, as I munched away at the crisps, “You`re dropping crumbs everywhere”.  The Renault was my usual tractor unit.  “I hadn`t noticed”, I said.  “I hope you don`t eat junk like this all the time you are away”, she persisted.  “They didn`t have any celery”, I assured her.

Sometime in the afternoon we joined a motorway and after clarification that my discerning driver`s mate was sure she wanted a hotel for the night, I told her that there was a motel at the next service station. “Take the A road at the next junction”, she instructed, turning to me from the GPS with her look of `non-negotiation`.   I did, as instructed, and we were lead onto a thirty mile an hour speed limit road that ran through a busy little village.  “There”, she said, pointing to a large country pub that advertised hotel accommodation.  “It`s a pub”, I protested. “There`s nowhere to park”.  “There`s a car park behind”, she said.  “Exactly, and I know this thing only has two-seats, but it ain`t no car”.  “Pull in”, she told me, “I`ll deal with this”.

I managed to get into the car park, squeezing past a couple of cars, and finally positioning the lorry along the entire length of a tree lined hedge that ran across the back of the property, covering who knows how many parking bays. A ruddy faced gent in a black suit came running from the front entrance.  “What are you doing”? He said, coming straight at me, as I climbed down from the cab. My wife appeared between us, as if gliding on a blanket of mist.  I don`t think either of us, me or the hotelier, saw her legs moving.  “We wish to stay the night”, my wife informed him.  “But this is a hotel”, he said.  “Then, mercifully", she said, "we have come to the right place”.  “But trucks are not permitted in here”, he came back, instantly.  She, though, was scanning the pub, as if not listening. We couldn`t help ourselves but follow her gaze.  First she looked at the large door at the rear of the kitchens, close to where the MAN was parked.  Then she fixed her eyes on the beer cellar`s enormous covers, which were nearby.  And then to the narrow, busy road out front.  “Where do the delivery trucks unload, then”? She asked.  “Well”, he faltered momentarily - you could literally see his shoulders drop.  “That`s different”, he said, gathering himself, manfully.  “The simple fact is you cannot stay here”.  “You said that trucks weren`t allowed in here, but they clearly are.  You lied”.  “Madam, please.”  She appeared to have him on the ropes again, but he still managed to rally. “I am the manager, please, you cannot stay”.  “We have had a long day, we are tired.  Are you saying that ...”, a long, red finger nail tapped the bronze name badge he wore on the lapel of his jacket that proudly displayed the logo and name of a chain of inns.  “... Are you saying these people will turn a forty-four tonne juggernaut loose on the road with a tired driver, during the school run”?  With that the battle was won and he turned towards the entrance of the pub and reluctantly beckoned us to follow.  As my wife made to tag along, I caught the sleeve of her blouse and said, in a low voice, “Tell him we want a room with a view, not overlooking the car park with that bloody great lorry in it”.  “Oh, shut up”, she giggled.

The room was far more luxurious than either of us expected –`bygone opulence` was their speciality, according to a leaflet displayed beside the courtesy kettle. “I don`t think I`ll join you on any more runs in the lorry”, she said later, after we had returned to the room from eating. “It`s too much aggravation. I don`t know how you do it”. I nodded and suppressed a smile. “Great, Total Recall is on later”, I said, flicking through the TV guide.  “Strictly”, she said.  “OK, if you like”, I said. She liked that stuff and anyway, I had had enough of arguing for one day.  “You know”, she said, bouncing lightly on the king-size duvet. “We needn`t watch anything, if you don`t want to”. 

The War Effort

Joey was small compared to the rest of them. Standing shoulder to shoulder or head to head was not an option for Joey; for him it was always head to shoulder.  It wasn`t as if they were Guards either; these were transport drivers, mechanics and the like, just ordinary blokes of what was considered, average height.    The fact was that Joey could only be described as being shorter than average, and then only if you were a friend of his, he was just plain short if you were not. To those that worked with him, Joey was short. REME the sign above the gate to the compound said, and to Joey, unlike most of his comrades, this meant everything: The 'Engineers' was his only true friend – Joey was neither average nor normal.

He`d enlisted as soon as he was old enough, without waiting for National Service to come calling, and was trained as a mechanic.   It was in the Far East that Joey saw active service, deployed as a recovery driver and mechanic in an area so different to home and so dense with jungle that the world he had once known disappeared.  The war, the climate – sometimes wet; always sweltering - meant that most men struggled to make sense of it, but to Joey it was a place to matter. And it was there, in his Scammell Explorer that he mattered: that giant of a lorry with all its winches, chains, pulleys, derrick and enormous towing bars dominated everything around it.  Like a man-made goliath it defied nature - engineered confidence commanding where everything else succumbed.  Joey had found the place he wanted to be - one where he towered, while the world below fought for attention. 

Joey walked as he acted, as if he were being continually measured.  He looked like he was on his toes all the time, although he wasn`t, or as if he was wearing heels, which he wasn`t either.  Joey just stretched his body to its full extent, implausibly squeezing out every last fraction of height.  Chest out, shoulders back; he used every method he knew of to appear taller.  He wrapped himself in the imaginary flags of attraction; those intended to create the illusion of `bigger`.  His Scammell was decorated with a motif copied from a fighter aircraft he`d once seen in a magazine, much to the chagrin of his superiors, and in it, with his arm resting on a half open window and exposed nearly to the shoulder by a tightly rolled shirt sleeve, Joey strutted.  To complete the image (one Joey imagined for himself) a side arm in a webbing holster hung from his hip.  But only when away from prying eyes of the compound - it was unofficial, he told all those he met.  He was glad of it, he would say, as it had got him out of many a scrape, out there alone, as he often was.  They usually nodded, rarely believed him, and without fail, sniggered behind his back.

*******************************************

From a recovery point of view, the job seemed straightforward enough.  A Bedford four-tonner, heading back from a combat zone close to an enemy held part of the country, had gone off the side of a track about 10 miles out and needed pulling from a ditch.  The trouble was the reason it was in there in the first place.  A sniper had hit the radiator and in the ensuing panic the driver had left the road.  His frantic efforts to get out of the ditch had cooked the engine and the vehicle, though, thankfully, not its occupants, was effectively dead.

Volunteers they called them, those that would brave sniper fire to rescue the four-tonner and its crew.  No one, of course, came forward from the ranks that morning. The major scanned their faces but no one so much as flinched, or met his eyes, as he looked along the line.  There was the company heavyweight boxing champion, at least six feet tall and built to destroy - the fit, the crafty, the lazy, the comedians and the new ones, they were all there, at eye level and staring blankly ahead.  “Where`s Big Joey?” the major said, with a grin that was straightaway matched by all those who stood before him.  Joey, in his usual place, under a lorry and covered in oil, was soon found and dispatched; his Scammell, trundling out of the compound, soon disappeared, enveloped in the green.

It didn`t take long for Joey to find the stricken lorry, and as he climbed from his cab, a weary looking and somewhat bedraggled figure ran towards him in a sort of half crouch, and with his head down.  In his right hand the figure carried a revolver which was attached to his belt by a lanyard.  Two pips were just about visible on the right shoulder of his sweat ridden battle dress.  Other figures, equally damp and dishevelled, huddled around the vehicle's wheels, some kneeling, some laying but all with their rifles at the ready.  Joey walked with the lieutenant back to his vehicle, their heads at the same height: Joey on his toes the other man virtually on his knees.  “Keep down, for God sake”, someone called out, “He`s still out there”.  Joey looked around him, the `he` referred to was nowhere to be seen, as far as he could see, anyway.

Joey tried to start the lorry but the information he had been given was right, it was completely unserviceable.  “You blokes seen some action?” Joey said, looking at the small group of men in admiration.  No one answered, they just looked at each other and then back at the surrounding jungle, warily, retaining their defensive positions. “Where were you going?” Joey tried again.  “The pub then home for dinner”, one said, and they all chuckled.  “Back to normality”, said another, “Away from this hell-hole”. “You wish”, the officer was smiling, “We`ve been pulled back for a bit of R `n` R, then it`s back up there, I`m afraid”, he said.  The men muttered.  “What I`d give to be back home, lovely safe job and a weekend away with the missus now and again, in a B `n` B by the sea”, someone said.  There were a few murmurs of agreement.

Joey went back to the Scammell and returned with some rope, shackles and the end of the heavy wire cable from the Scammell`s winch.  The others stayed put and looked on.  It would be no good trying to pull the Bedford directly, as it was at right angles to the track, so Joey rigged a pulley system from the back of the Scammell, via a tree opposite the Bedford, and onto the Bedford`s front axle.  To the wonder and considerable fascination of the small group hiding beside their lorry, he then proceeded to tie a number of the trees beside the track together, linking them to the one opposite the Bedford, the one to which he had previously attached a swivel block.  Then, with Joey back at the controls, the Scammell`s engine revved and the cable tightened.  The trees groaned and began to shift, straining on their feeble roots, but before long the Bedford was back up on the track; all be it still at ninety degrees to the required direction. After coaxing the Bedford`s driver back into his seat, and after instructing him to put his foot hard on the brake, Joey pulled the vehicle`s front round on its sliding, locked wheels and the Bedford was back in line.  While Joey hitched it to the rear of the Scammell, the other men ran from cover and with great relief, climbed aboard.

   *******************************************

The lorry was soon in the workshop and the unfortunate group of soldiers back on their onward journey to some well earned respite.  Joey, sweating in the humidity of a makeshift canvas cover, was getting stuck into removing the engine`s cylinder head to inspect the damage.  The other mechanics went about their business not wishing to catch Joey`s eye and be subjected, once again, to the story of how he had rescued a ditched lorry and fought his way out of the jungle, under the withering fire of a hidden sniper.

 

Time Trial

It was an old building of red brick and sandstone block work; one that had stood longer than those around it.  A weathered facade displayed the colourful shields and crowns of office and the words Court House were engraved in the light stone arch above a grand entrance. To the interest of no one - except a middle aged man manacling his cycle to railings that ran along the front of the building - the time it took someone to walk the length of those railings was the same as the time a lorry could move in the queuing traffic, start to stop.  No one, except the cyclist, seemed to notice these rush-hour lorries accelerating and braking.  And it was only he that looked up to see how far a lorry would travel from standstill to standstill.

Inside, another day of business was about to get under way.  High up in the main hall, the court clock ticked away the seconds towards ten o`clock, while solicitors, police officers and witnesses mingled with the accused below.  The ushers called out names, solicitors confided with clients, and officers chatted. When Ten o`clock arrived the court sessions began and the hall settled into nervous waiting.  A court list had been posted giving the names of the accused and what they were accused of.  Court One was to hear a matter of dangerous cycling.

The proceedings got under way in a time order dictated by the Clerk of the Court.  The magistrates entered; Court One stood. The accused (referred to by the clerk as the defendant) was ushered into the witness box situated to one side of the magistrates’ bench, above the long tables reserved for the solicitors.  Everyone else, the public and press, was seated towards the rear of the courtroom and on the same, lower level as the solicitors.  As time moved on the defendant took the oath, swearing on the New Testament, and confirming his name as Mr Stone.  Not only did he deny the charge, he told the court that he would be defending himself.

A few moments later Mr Stone took his place at the opposite end of the table occupied by the prosecuting solicitor and a police officer, the sole witness for the prosecution, took to the witness box.  His methodical progress from the entrance, round the back of the main seating area and along the side wall below the tall windows, was followed by everyone.  The officer - in the rhythm of name and number, of date and time, of where and why -  gave the court his evidence.

He was an experienced traffic policeman, trained in all aspects of enforcement including speed detection. He was driving his police car on a thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit road approaching a pedestrian crossing. The cycle was ahead of him, on the left and moving quickly, a racing type with the rider looking in both posture and appearance like a racing cyclist.  The cyclist had his head down and was pumping away at the pedals.  The road was flat.  They approached the pedestrian crossing.  A young woman was on the pavement to the left, pushing a child towards the zebra crossing in a `baby buggy` type push chair.  The cycle went over the crossing just as the front wheels of the buggy were on it.  He believed the child would have been seriously hurt had it been hit.  He stopped the cycle beyond the crossing and reported the cyclist. The cyclist, he said, was travelling at a speed of about 20 miles-per-hour.

The officer was asked by the prosecuting solicitor to clarify that at the time the pushchair was on the crossing.  He answered that it was and that the cycle was two seconds from it at the time.  Mr Stone was then given the opportunity to question the officer.

“You say the push chair was on the crossing when I crossed it?”

“That`s correct”.

“All of it?”

“No, as I have said, just the front”.

“How far would you say I was from the crossing when the front of the chair entered onto the crossing?”

“About ten feet”.

“Which is about three metres?”

“Yes”.

“Are you sure it was three metres?”

“Yes, I believe it was about that”.

“You say I was travelling at twenty miles-per-hour?”

“Yes”.

“Was this as I went over the crossing or after?”

“For the whole time. I used the display on the speed detection device in my car to record the speed before I stopped the cyclist”.  The officer was addressing the Magistrates. 

“You say a lady was pushing a child on the crossing”.

“No, she wasn`t on it.  The front of the chair was on the crossing. There was also someone on the other side”.

 “Did that person walk onto the crossing?”

“Yes”.

“Did the woman with the child actually step onto the crossing?”

“No, she saw the cyclist just in time and stopped at the side, pulling the chair back”.

“You say you understand the speed detection equipment in your vehicle.”

“That`s correct”.

“Do you understand the relationship between speed, time and distance, and how average speed is the time taken to cover a distance in a certain time?”

“Yes, as I said, I have been trained in all aspects speed enforcement”.

“Then tell me, please.  You say the front of the push chair was on the crossing when I was two seconds back and three metres away.  How fast was I travelling, using this information?”

The officer was quiet. He looked at the magistrates but got no help in formulating an answer.

“Let me assist you”, Mr Stone said.  “It took me two seconds to cover three metres. That means I was travelling at a rate of one and a half metres every second.  My speed, then, was about three miles-per-hour.  That`s walking pace, and not twenty miles an hour.”

“Well, no, but... .”

“How did you measure my speed?”

“I used the speed digital display on the vehicle`s enforcement equipment.  It`s calibrated and totally accurate”.

“But how did you relate your speed to mine”.

“I don`t understand what you mean”.

“You followed over the crossing when there was someone on it, crossing from the other side?”

“Well, no, I stopped but so did they. They stood on the crossing and let me pass, and I followed the cycle and stopped it beyond the crossing”.

“So, when you say I was travelling at twenty miles an hour, that`s the maximum speed you reached in order to catch up with me?”

“Yes, I suppose so”.

“And as you stopped on the crossing and then accelerated to twenty miles an hour, your average speed over the distance from the crossing, where you stopped, to where you reached me was less than half that, depending on how quickly you slowed. In any case, probably greater than my average speed.  Remember what was said earlier, my speed was only three miles an hour from your opinion of my time and distance from the crossing”.

The officer didn`t answer - for a moment, he didn`t appear to be able to say anything.

“In fact”, Mr Stone was now addressing the Magistrates.   “The woman hadn`t entered the crossing, she had stopped while I passed by at low speed.  The officer, by his own admission, had driven over the crossing with someone on it, the person crossing from the other side...”.

Outside the traffic was moving freely after the morning rush hour.  People on the footway were passing the front of the building, and lorries trundled along at a constant speed.  No one gave a second thought as to how far they, or any other vehicle for that matter, had travelled in the time it took someone to walk past the front of the building - except the middle-aged cyclist, releasing his cycle from where it had been chained.