Open Writing

One of the cars that passed through my stable was a Hillman Estate Car bought when I lived at 16 Nab Lane, Mirfield. Where from and for how much I got it, I haven’t the slightest idea, but it was a decent car, and I could stash my amps, speakers, guitar, and other accoutrements required by a wandering minstrel.

By day I was Ronnie Bray, but at night I transformed into Ray Buck the Country Singer, with assignments in various clubs, pubs, theatres, and other places that enjoyed my kind of singing.

I carried a guitar on these engagements, although I was not and still am not a guitarist. I did strum a few mostly appropriate chords, but the main reason for taking the guitar on stage was to hide a hole in my suit. That wasn’t true, but that’s what I told the audience.

After a hard day working for Fairclough’s Builders, I would eat, freshen up, rest, load the car, rest, and then set off to my gig. Some gigs were local, in and around the West Riding of Yorkshire. Others took me further afield, such as the wilds of Yorkshire’s eastern acres to the inn on the river for a two-nighter, and deep into the Cumberland countryside for a two-nighter at The Swan restaurant run by the strange lady, assisted by her even stranger son.

Other shows took me into the South Riding, down to Chesterfield, and further south to uncharted places such as Goldthorpe, Grimeshaw, Derby, and Nottingham, even into Lancashire.

In the other direction lay the North Riding, and places in East Yorkshire that would be in the East Riding had there been an East Riding.

Having a reliable car was important for several reasons, not the least of which was the need to get to my venues in a timely fashion, set up my equipment, set sound levels, reverberation, and phase shifter, and guitar, after which invariably I had to tune the guitar, then set mike level, and run through "Abilene," my sound-check song.

For several months the Hillman ran smoothly, although I noticed the engine oil level needed to be topped up almost as often as the fuel tank needed petrol. In this connection, I had been surprised that the oil on the dipstick was always a beautiful amber colour, not at all like the black sludge that usually dripped from it when I was in the habit of adding oil but never draining, refilling, and replacing the filter.

I eventually deduced that the reason the oil always looked fresh and clean was because it was fresh and clean. The engine did not burn oil, but it lost it in greater than small amounts so that checking the level every fifty miles was de rigueur. As was keeping a gallon of the sweet stuff in the back, just in case.

But, came the day when all was not well with my faithful steed. When travelling at a fair lick of speed, it suffered losses of power that initiated reductions of speed that were, at times down, to a fast crawl.

I agonised as to the cause of the problem, but as I was in my ‘I can’t afford to take it to a mechanic’ spasms, I struggled along for some months, starting my necessary journeys earlier than usual I could dawdle in the middle speed range, at which times the engine continued to drive the wheels without complaint.

Perhaps you have noticed that mechanical and electrical problems do not often put themselves right without surgical intervention. So it was with the estate car. It got worse and worse, then worser and worser, then worserer and worserer, until it gave up the ghost and refused point blank to go anywhere.

My good neighbour, Bev Williams, answered my late night telephone call – it was a mutual arrangement we had – and drove his antique Hillman saloon through the dark of night to affix his big rope and tow me home.

I was forced to conclude that the vehicle needed attention. Reluctantly next morning I switched the ignition on, and disconnected the fuel pipe that led to the pump from the tank. The electric pump sounded like a castanettist in a fit, but delivered nothing, not a fume or even a ghost of a fume, just empty promises, false hopes, and mocking taunts.

I undid the pipe at the tank end and blew through it. The taste was pretty grim, but there seemed to be no obstruction. My next task was to inspect the fuel sender unit that lived inside the tank. When I lifted this delicate instrument from its mounting, and withdrew it from its dark domain, I could see the problem.

It was an interesting sight. By ‘interesting’ I mean interesting in the same way that a boa constrictor rising from the bowl after flushing could be described as interesting. In fact, it was a constrictor that was the root of the problem, although ‘tweren’t of the boa variety.

For a reason as yet unknown to the Encyclopædia Britannica and other learned tomes, Hillman chose to spray paint the inside of the fuel tanks for a season. Why painting the insides of vessels intended to contain volatile liquor seemed good to them, we might never know.

However, either the inside of the mild steel tank was insufficiently sticky, or else the paint was of the one-sided variety that, lacking its inside layer, had nothing with which it could stick to anything, especially if the anything was unsticky.

Thus whilst after having hung on for dear life for 60,000 miles, it then lost its grip and slid off in sheets to thrash around the bottom of the tank. And there, by a whim of nature, a portion of one such strip introduced itself to the petrol intake and settled down to raise a family.

I analysed the critical succession of events that had first slowed, then stopped, my progress to all destinations. It wasn’t hard to track down the chain of events, the reasons the chain started, and the conclusion of the whole matter, in which I was cast as the victim.

First, it had transpired that some of the paint had peeled itself away from the inside of the tank. After sloshing around for an undetermined length of time and roadways it fell prey to mal de mer, but saw the inlet through which the petrol was sucked, and determined that it would escape through that aperture, and cry out as it did so, "I’m free!"

The plan seemed like a winner, so, making its way towards the opening, the strip stuck its hand in the orifice, and the fuel pump did the rest – almost!

The one skin thick strip of paint was converted from its flat shape into a roll or coil. This was accomplished by it being tossed about by the free and random motion of the fluid as the car hurtled towards work in the daytime and my artiste engagements by night.

The end of the roll was narrow enough to fit snugly inside the pipe’s meatus. But its tail was less tightly wound, so that at low or medium speeds, sufficient fuel would be sucked up the pipe to keep the show rolling.

However, when greater demand was put on the system by high speed driving, as was my wont, then more of the coil was sucked into the opening until it was sucked in so fiercely that it formed an extremely effective plug that no petrol could pass. Consequently, we rolled to an inconvenient halt.

A cursory inspection – all that can be achieved unless your neighbour is both Tom Thumb and extremely accommodating – showed that there were lots of detritus inside. Since cleaning the petrol tank to rid it of paint fragments was out of the question, it had to be replaced.

A couple of miles distant was Cooper Bridge Spares, where cheap and poor motorists went to get replacement parts. The prices were affordable and their guarantees first class. Even without Mr Thumb’s support I was able to determine that they had a tank for my model, that it had not been afflicted by its maker with an insalubrious, problematic, and supernumerary lining, and that the price was within my means.

It took about half an hour to replace the good tank, fit all the fittings, and attempt to start the car. When the petrol reached the pump, the carburettor, and the intake manifold, it roared into life. The beast was back!

It taught me that as with motor vehicles, so it goes with life oftimes. Namely, that things done for good purposes can generate bad conclusions. In such cases, I came to realise, it is more manly, more humane, to consider the good intentions of the one who performs the favour, and to bless them for their kindness, rather than lambaste them for what their kindness produces when it goes wrong. Therefore, I felt no hostility to the designers at the Hillman Company, but rather felt good because my car was back on the road, and I felt good because I didn't feel bad about the authors of my inconvenience.

Gratitude brings out the best in people, whether deserved or not, but disdain, especially when they sought only to do good things, shrivels the soul, chills the heart, and fractures relationships, yet does not solve the problem. Besides which, disdain generates ulcers, but gratitude produces friends and eases stress for all involved.

Thank you for reading this. I am grateful!

(C) 2008 - Ronnie Bray