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By now.. I was Jack the Lad!! Had been going out with Aileen Connolly for a year or two, and had sold the Beetle to Andy Roland and bought a lovely yellow Lotus Elan - soft-top.
A long weekend came up and Aileen and I bombed off to St Ives in Cornwall. I can remember getting well caught in "weekend traffic" around Swindon or Reading during the evening of the Thursday, when in my rear-view mirror I saw another Lotus Elan overtaking like crazy, and he came bombing past us too!!
Well!! Red Rag to a bull!! Off I went after him... lots of light flashing and crazy driving - I'm sure at least 100 drivers must have said "look at these two crazies coming up behind" - but we stopped for petrol made acquaintances - they (a couple) were going to some "group thingy" in St Ives (at this stage we hadn't decided where we were going) - so our minds were made up.
Cannot remember too much about them and their group but we toured around the tip of Cornwall...
I think this is St Ives - the rocky bit.....
St
Ives...the sandy bit....??
The
Lizard.
There she is - Aileen at The Lizard.
I
know, I know - I said I was Jack the Lad - and I certainly don't look the part,
and what was a lovely lady like that doing with a geek like this - I even
remember that my mum made that shirt!! Anyway - ignore all that and concentrate
on the dramatic "end of England" - Land's End.
During our racing around the tip of Cornwall, on a very small road, we came upon
a bug-eyed Sprite - and we - being in an Elan - had to show off and show "a
Spridget" what a "sports car" was all about!! Down into second gear - Aileen
saying "don't go mad" - and we zoomed past them... they picked up speed and we
were racing again!! I shook them a little bit - but I didn't know the road at
all, so had to be careful. Suffice to say.. I came a bit sideways around one
bend, only to see an elderly gentleman (maybe a farmer) stopped dead in his
tracks, looking at this sideways car coming towards him. The only place I could
"recover to" was the heather and rocks alongside the road, where we bumped and
banged to a halt! I just about had got out of the car when the Spridget came
touring past giving a cheery wave and continued into the distance. I went back
to the man who said a couple of things like "You ain't on the M1 now you know"
and "I was just about to throw myself over that wall", but he was OK - and was
nice enough to get his tractor and pulled us back onto the road. No damage done
- except to my pride - how lucky!!
We
were not alone.. see the hat at bottom left??
So that was the weekend and we duly bombed back to
London - where we broke down and had to wait for the AA to come and bump-start
us at about 02:00AM.... which led to one of my "Rules to Live by".
Aileen and I both worked for ICL - she in Putney (where she lived). I dropped her off and drove home early on the Tuesday morning. I duly got up and went to work and phoned her later in the day - she hadn't gone in to work (too tired etc..) but made the brilliant excuse.... (see Tell People what they want to hear)