05-12-2020, 09:15 PM
1
Stop! Police!
The scruffy young man of twenty three with at least a day’s stubble and tousled hair drove his scruffy old car South West along the M5 through Somerset, with 90% of his belongings in the boot.Next to him sat a smartly dressed young girl of thirteen, and behind her sat her sister, an equally smartly turned-out girl of fifteen.
The car wasn’t very reliable, and left a faint trail of brown oil vapour in its wake as a result of a rather tired and worn-out engine. The vehicle had dreadful handling and wallowed alarmingly as it went round corners, but in a straight line it could out accelerate an MGB. Not that the young man would be doing that today. Not with two young girls on board. He didn't need to impress them. He just needed them to trust him.
He was travelling from Bristol where he lived to Torquay, but had broken his journey a few miles before joining the motorway due to an intermittent ignition fault. Whilst stopped, the younger of the two girls had brazenly asked for a ride, and then ordered her older sister into the back when the young man had agreed, so that she could then sit up front next to him.
As they headed down the motorway, every now and then the younger girl would cast a surreptitious glance towards the driver. She wasn’t the only one taking an interest in him. As they passed a Police car that had peeled off the motorway onto the Taunton Dean Services slip-road, the Police driver took a good look at the car and occupants, paying particular attention to the scruffy young man.
The officer made a comment to his front seat passenger who also turned to take a good look at the scruffy car, the scruffy driver, and the two seemingly out of place smartly dressed teenage girls.
The scruffy man thought nothing of it and carried on driving. A few miles later however, the Police car shot passed him and signalled the young man to pull over. Fearing there was a serious problem with his car he immediately steered onto the hard shoulder and braked hard. It wasn’t an emergency stop, but it was quick enough that the police didn’t immediately notice and carried on for several hundred yards before it too pulled onto the hard shoulder and stopped.
One of the Policemen got out and waved the driver forward. Still concerned there must be something wrong with his car, the young man carefully got out and started walking towards the other car. Exasperated, the officer waved his hands and gave a sort pushing motion, indicating the driver should stay put. The officer got back in his car which then reversed until it was just in front of the young man and his car that had been forced to stop.
Both officers got out this, looking very stern, and walked back towards the young man who by now was leaning against the bonnet of his own car. All of a sudden both Policemen stopped and in a surprised voice one of them said, “Oh, you’re together”.
Just behind the scruffy car was a shiny new one with a middle-aged couple in the front.
“Yes,” said the young man, pointing first towards the new car then towards his own, “that’s their parents.”
And that my friends is how I got stopped by two well-meaning Police officers who pulled me over whilst driving with my cousins, and my Uncle and Aunt following on behind. I freely admit I looked dodgy, and I commend the officers for being suspicious when they saw me and my two passengers.
I had left home the previous evening but my car developed an electrical fault so I called in at my Uncle’s place to check the car over in his garage. My Aunt suggested that since it was dark, and since they were all going to spend the following day in Torquay with my parents anyway, it would be safer for me to stay the night and then travel down in convoy in daylight the next day.
As anyone who lives with teenage girls will know, finding a window of opportunity to use the bathroom is not the easiest of things to do, so the following morning I decided to shower and shave when I got to my parents’ place rather than hold everyone else up, which is why I looked rather scruffy that morning. In addition, I was an apprentice and couldn’t afford anything better than an old worn-out car at the time.
The girls always preferred to ride with me because I had a radio cassette player, and unlike their parents the three of us had similar tastes in music and I always let then decide what we listened to. The younger girl invariably called shotgun because she had an inexplicable crush on me, which is why she asked if she could travel with me, and she always made her sister sit in the back.
I was living in a fully furnished rented house-share in Bristol in the late seventies, and other than a crappy car, I didn't have much to my name except my clothes and a decent toolkit I kept in my car, hence the reason why I was travelling with ninety percent of my worldly goods.
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