The Car Crash ( story)

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 Slackboot 25 May 2021

We had grown up together, a few doors apart in a small Northumberland mining village. We started climbing together as teenagers. He was always better than me and he was my best friend. Now he was driving me to Ambleside for an interview at Charlotte Mason. But it was more complicated than that. I was also moving home after living with my dad for so long. I was also getting married in a weeks time. As we sped through the beautiful countryside one misty November morning I sat in my interview/ wedding suit in his precious Ford Capri. This car had taken us all over the country on climbing trips and was now brim full of all my worldly goods. My head was a whirl of emotions. College interview, leaving home, marriage, and my dad. Would he be alright on his own? My mam had died a few years before and he had struggled. I really loved him, but I was being pushed into the world by forces I didn't understand and couldn't seem to control.

As we took a sharp left hand bend the car started to slide sideways on the leaf covered road. This was classic Ford Capri stuff but this time it kept sliding. We hit the kerb on the other side of the road and flipped over. We were trapped upside down in a ditch! Petrol started to leak in. We couldn't open the doors! Mine was jammed by a tree. The other by the bank of the ditch. I had lost my specs and could only see blurs. Hanging upside down, trapped, covered in petrol and unable to see there was only one word that summed it up....

He had the presence of mind to switch off the engine. As a non driver I hadn't thought of that. He wouldn't let me kick out the windscreen for some obscure reason. Forgetting I was hanging upside down I released the seat belt and crumpled into a heap on the roof of the car. Being skinny climbers we crawled through the broken side window which was half covered by tree trunk. We stood at the side of the road in the early morning countryside covered in blood. He went off to find a farmer. I was now virtually blind and for some reason decided to take off my Wedding Suit in case it got spoiled by the blood. I stood peering into the mist in my budgie smugglers and blood stained shirt. A car approached. I could hear it. It slowed down. The driver seeing the semi naked, blood soaked zombie waving frantically at him in the early morning mist put his foot down and sped off. Two other cars did the same. I wonder what tales they told of that morning? 

Eventually he arrived back with a farmer. " What insurance 'ave you got? " enquired the farmer in his soft Northumbrian accent. "Third party" was the reply. "Torch it" said the farmer. I wouldn't let them. After all it was full of everything I owned including my precious bike. He pulled us out with his tractor, the Capri flipping right way over in the process. There were massive dents in the roof and drivers door. How we had survived in that space was anybody's guess. My mates dad towed us home. It was still drivable! if it hadnt been for the lack of oil and petrol that is. His mam was crying. But we were relatively unscathed and I sloped off to see my dad and ring my girlfriend and the college to say I wouldn't be attending for interview that day.

Two weeks later I sat in the interview room in Ambleside in a newly dry cleaned suit. I had been married for a week. The interview wasn't going well. The interviewers all looked a bit green around the gills. The room reeked of petrol. I felt ill. One of them looked at me and asked " do you sniff petrol? " . "Not usually" I replied, "but I do now!". I had cleaned my suit but completely forgot about the leather brogues I had been wearing. The warm room had brought the petrol soaked shoes to life. We all rushed outside to be sick.

The Ford Capri was back on the road within a month, continuing it's primary task of carrying its occupants to Bowden Doors, The Wanneys, Kyloe and all the other wonderful Northumberland crags, and I got into college.

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 Lankyman 26 May 2021
In reply to Slackboot:

I once shared a house with a Capri owner. I wasn't ever offered a ride - I had an old Fiesta. Seems like I had a lucky escape?

1
OP Slackboot 26 May 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

The back end was notorious for sliding away, because of the long front I suppose. It was always seen as a poor man's sports car.

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 CantClimbTom 26 May 2021
In reply to Slackboot:

I had a mini not a Capri, as you could get a reliable(sort of...) Mini cheaper and was cheaper to insure too. But the number of stories I heard about Capri owners losing it the first time they drove it on a frosty day and ending up "parking" in someone's front garden + the advice (not humour) to keep a sack of cement in the boot.  The way I drove back then   I might be dead if I'd had a Capri and I don't mean that as some flippant comment. They definitely had character and deserve to be a classic, although a handful to drive

1
OP Slackboot 26 May 2021
In reply to CantClimbTom:

They did look quite good. This one was metallic brown and I seem to remember the obligatory wooly dice hanging from the rear view mirror!

1
OP Slackboot 26 May 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

My first car was a Vauxhall Viva Deluxe. I bought it from the Capri owner. It was his first car too. It cost £200 in 1985 which seems quite a lot now. I sat and failed my driving test in it. Everything went wrong that day! Bits of the Viva fell off during the test. I won't say too much as I'm going to write it up. I used to put a blanket on the engine at night.  'Tuck it in' you might say. That way it would generally start the next morning. If I ever forgot about the blanket and just drove off it would fill with smoke. I did that a few times.

1
 colinakmc 26 May 2021
In reply to Slackboot:

My first climbing mate was a paint sales rep with a Capri always with half a boot full of samples. His handled just fine...just the right amount of skittishness at the back.

1
 Lankyman 26 May 2021
In reply to Slackboot:

> My first car was a Vauxhall Viva Deluxe. I bought it from the Capri owner. It was his first car too. It cost £200 in 1985 which seems quite a lot now. I sat and failed my driving test in it. Everything went wrong that day! Bits of the Viva fell off during the test. I won't say too much as I'm going to write it up. I used to put a blanket on the engine at night.  'Tuck it in' you might say. That way it would generally start the next morning. If I ever forgot about the blanket and just drove off it would fill with smoke. I did that a few times.

My first 'car' was an old, white Viva van when I was 18. Managed to drive it to the Peak and back firing on 3 cylinders. I had quite a few bangers in my youth. I remember driving over to Malham and a mate in the car behind flashed me. When I pulled in he said he'd seen a piece fall off my car. We found a big chunk of rubber which didn't seem to affect the driving and so carried on. I ended up driving that car to the scrapyard holding the gear stick in place all the way.

1
cb294 27 May 2021
In reply to Slackboot:

My neighbour is a Ford mechanic and Capri collector. He has a garage full of the things, from an elegant, no frills, early 70s bronze coupe (actually, diarrhea brown) to an orange late series model with air scoop on the bonnet, full race trim, spoilers, side skirts and of course the obligatory Ted Nugent style fox tail on the antenna.

He is particularly proud of the fact that all of them have a rigid rear axle. No fancy single wheel suspension, no Sir....

I am jealous! My parents had a series of Ford Consuls and Granadas when I was a kid, and I was always impressed by the sporty Capris!

CB

 hang_about 28 May 2021
In reply to Slackboot:

ooh - a Vauxhall Viva Deluxe! I learned to drive in a Vauxhall Viva. Managed to drive it without the keys in the ignition once as they fell out. A quick squirt of WD40 under the distributor cap to get it going on damp mornings (hopefully). That whirrr, whirrr, whirrr of will it start before the battery dies. Rust In Peace.

 Greenbanks 29 May 2021
In reply to Slackboot:

Thanks for posting. A lovely recollection of a friendship and a signature period in your life - though it did have me rather on tenterhooks for a moment, thinking that the consequences of the crash might have been more serious.

OP Slackboot 29 May 2021
In reply to Greenbanks:

Thank you for your kind words and thanks to all for taking the time to read my stories.


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