I can understand the love for trains and the fantastic mechanical reliability and straightness of the iron tracks, literally joining up faraway places to each other, like neurone pathways or energy meridians carrying blips of new life. The French countryside has a lot of level crossings as its well served by its wonderfully comfortable and reliable rail, and each time I cross one, without fail I imagine a train suddenly appearing to sweep me into oblivion, and occasionally, an extra check, peering down the long straight track as I cross unhesitatingly. As kids we hung around on the rails, even in the tunnels, waiting for that hissing, singing, fizzing sound on the line, heralding the metal monster that severs limbs and heads of those brave or stupid enough to put an ear to the rail in anticipation. Where I dared only venture inside at most fifty metres, my brother Paul is the only person I know who walked the whole 3.5 miles of ‘Totley Tunnel’ from Dore to Grindleford of the 130 year-old Hope Valley line. I can imagine him, somewhere in the middle, out of the sight-line of each fabled end, running to the navvies’ escape hatches to brace against the wall as a non-stop rolling stock to Manchester hurtled by. A whole different game to collecting numbers from platforms.
My love for vehicles, however, is on another level.
Motorbikes of course are fast horses (and I’m certainly enjoying the French hunts of late), lorries are huge manifestations of male ego, buses are tiny nomadic communities and sports cars are little angry penises. When I was a kid, all vehicles had a certain lights-and-radiator ‘smile’ and I knew the make and model of every car on the road, helped by an I-Spy book, or we’d try to make words from number plates. My first auto experiences were fraught with dangerous events, including the stolen, crashing variety. In with the wrong crowd, but I was. Settling down a bit, had a 1976 VW Camper, a Luton van, then a pair of black ex-military police Fords; a twin-wheel transit (which served as a small removals business and a makeshift camper for trips to London) and a left-hand drive Escort. In Somerset the family car was a 12-seater Land Rover, the 4-wheel drive function of which unanimously failed the test for comfort over a ploughed field in the shadow of Glastonbury Tor. Another memorable motor was a fabulous old Renault 5 I got for fifty quid at auction, complete with tape player, I relished playing the only cassette it kept, of Django Reinhardt, each time I drove to the shops or college, France already beckoning back in the 90’s.
In my dreams I have an emergency vehicle station, incorporating a museum with the finest and strangest of international ambulances, fire engines, police cars, military and whatever else pertaining to the world of wheels and human situational emergencies, crimes and rescues. Unlike most people who can continue as normal when an emergency vehicle passes I need to be fully involved. My hearing is so sensitive I seem to be the only person in the street to put fingers in ears to block the siren. But it’s the disruption to the usual traffic flow as the noisy, speeding vehicle rushes to make things ok again, that captures my full visceral attention. I can usually taste adrenaline if I get a good enough look of the driver’s determined and focussed face, internally encouraging them on, and am disappointed if they look too relaxed and not just on the safe side of causing another accident or emergency. If I’m in a vehicle when I hear the far off sirens, I pull well over in good time, hazard lights on to alert others, feeling a mixture of pride, empathy and gratitude for our service men and women, especially for those who may be traumatised by injury or death. Crime and forensics gets my attention too and I’m always considering the naughty people who constantly surround us, souring our cultures, chased by bobbies and undercover spies, especially in Istanbul and Damascus.
I met a paramedic recently who, from her unique perspective probably after a stressful long night, thought my old LWB Sprinter was perhaps once an ambulance but alas it was a well maintained hire van and so far has only ferried two patients in need of a lie-down in the Bordeaux vineyards, Catalan villages and deserts and beaches of Andalusia.
Only twice I’ve been in an ambulance, the first time I wasn’t fully individual, still inside my mother, so I don’t know if that counts, but that night forms the opening chapter of my autobiography, due for release sometime in the next year, so I’ll leave that to you. The other time was accompanying a close and dear relative who’d just broken her un-helmeted head when the front bicycle wheel went down one of Sheffield’s infamous deep holes-in-the-road, catapulting her over the handlebars.
For less than the price of a second-hand car you can buy an old ambulance, still fully kitted inside and out. I think I’ll do that. I’ll occasionally sit for a while and ponder all the blood, pain, birth, death and emotion then get someone to strap me to the gurney and hurtle round the dark streets of Northern English towns as I wail Bohemian Rhapsody.
https://youtu.be/v5xtjJ37DCo?feature=shared
https://sytm.co.uk/
https://www.visitnesm.org.uk/