In Good Company: Motorways
...When we were driving to the Lakes last summer we saw a figure silhouetted against the sky, above us on a bridge. As our car approached he dropped his pants, turned around and proudly presented his naked rear to the oncoming traffic. Cheeky!...
Enid Blackburn's motorway travelling occurred some decades ago.
Whenever we ride on a motorway I feel thankful I never found anyone capable of teaching me to drive. Keeping sane and in the correct lane takes more initiative than I’ll ever have. We motorwayed down to Birmingham last week and even before we started I was a-quiver with indecision. Firstly, should I belt up or not?
Since a relative’s accident, I feel particularly uneasy about this. She was thrown from the car, to escape with concussion, a couple of cracked ribs and her life! Had she been strapped in to the now crushed and practically non-existent front seat, would she have been so lucky?
On the other hand another relative lost the sight of one eye when she was smashed against the windscreen, could it have been worse if she had not been strapped in? Anyway just to be sure I clicked in and controlled an impulse to take along son’s crash helmet too! Motorway gazumping is not quite the nightmare since the five gremlins grew up. Yet whenever we ride alone, I am nostalgic. Now there is little relief from the motorway monotony. No tearful protestations, when our car wheels roll over the mangled body of a dead animal.
‘I’ve told you it’s a crow.’ ‘No its not it’s a rabbit.’ ‘Rabbits don’t have beaks.’ Big wail from youngest. ‘I didn’t see it dad.’ No obsession with toilets when the Services Ahead sign looms up either.
When there was seven of us plus potty, my driver didn’t mind me leading a sing-song or doling out points to magpie and oak tree spotters, or if I got fed up, offering 20 points for a blue-haired man wearing a red mac and carrying a black and white poodle under his arm.
The scenery can be unusually breathtaking sometimes, even on a motorway. When we were driving to the Lakes last summer we saw a figure silhouetted against the sky, above us on a bridge. As our car approached he dropped his pants, turned around and proudly presented his naked rear to the oncoming traffic. Cheeky! We had hitherto been in a nodding stupor but his performance certainly opened our eyes. It had a similar effect on the heavens, for there followed a crack of thunder and a flood was unleashed.
On tedious journeys one finds oneself occupied with strange thoughts. What prompted this young man to publicly unveil his potentials, I asked myself. Was it a compulsive habit he could not control? Or was he simply indulging in a momentary urge, like the one I struggle with when I want to pull my tongue out at passing strangers.
Did his mother make him wear too-tight trousers in his youth? Psychiatrists can usually trace quirks back to mother. When I think of the innumerable occasions that I said to my children, ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of you,’ I feel somewhat uneasy myself. At least it’s a harmless occupation.
We now know why football idiots bash each other’s faces in. ‘I like doing it,’ one offender explained recently.
Then there was the time a balloon burst when we were speeding up the M1. My apoplectic husband thought a tyre had blown and braked immediately. I thought we were being assassinated and when we discovered the tatters of coloured rubber on our children’s laps, they very nearly were.
Last week, as we approached Tamworth, we discovered something worth noting; a snack bar of taste, real taste. On the outside it looked like a tatty caravan, inside delicious individually brewed coffees in earthenware mugs were served to us for 15p by a charming lady who called me ‘sunshine’ and my husband ‘sweetheart.’
On the way back we risked a Services establishment. The last time I visited such a place the chef looked as ‘high’ as the grease marks on his walls. It took him five minutes to translate my order and another five to navigate the soup ladle.
What a difference last week! They were clearly expecting Egon Ronay. Waitresses were waitressing, cleaners cleaning, servers serving, and every-thing on the menu was displayed. One of the Lowry prints on the immaculate walls was slightly awry, but we enjoyed our coffee nevertheless – and yes, ‘oill give it foive!’
