Not only had I spent two years slaving as a cleaner and then a few vital weeks of revision time trying to mend my Mini instead of focussing on my studies, but, needless to say, all my work in trying to mend the bodywork on the car was completely fruitless and the car failed the MOT again anyway. The tester also made it very clear that ‘someone’ had clearly tried to fool him by attempting to mask the terminal rust on the sills with plastic padding, and that he didn’t think much of this at all. At this point my mum suddenly said that she’d pay for the repairs and had the car welded and MOTd the following week. Just like that. Why hadn’t she done so several weeks previously? As a teenager, the actions of one’s parents are nothing if not mystifying.
My A level exams themselves didn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d have liked, especially my English Lit as I’d panicked slightly in the exam, and instead of answering the question, I had just put lots of quotes in that weren’t directly relevant! I’d spent ages learning loads of quotes from all my set texts: Anthony and Cleopatra, Nostromo, Martin Chuzzlewit, The Mill on the Floss, The Inheritors, Brighton Rock and an anthology of Ted Hughes and Thom Gunn’s poetry, and be damned if I wasn’t going to use them!
Note that in those days you weren’t allowed to take your texts into the exam with you, and if you wanted to quote anything, then you had to learn it by heart before you went in. Anyway, my exams and those of my friends were all now finished, I had a roadworthy car, and we had the famously long hot Summer of ’76 stretching out before us. Bring it on!
The long hot summer of ‘76
My friends and I were now all 18 and we were set to have a great summer holiday that would knock Cliff Richard’s little jaunt into a cocked hat. Surely awaiting us on the South coast was sun, sand and sex (well, at least kissing - or to be honest, maybe even just talking to a girl would be great!) I went to an all-boys school and meeting the opposite sex was always something of a struggle.
In readiness for the holiday, I spent even more time on the Mini, customising the chrome front grill, fitting a roof rack (remember those huge grey alloy things that looked a bit like a shallow lobster basket?) and adding that all-important accessory, an 8-track cassette player! Oh, Yeah!! We were ready to rock and roll with sun-kissed bikini-clad beach babes! Bring it on! 5 of us (yes, FIVE – hence the roof rack) somehow squeezed into the Mini – bear in mind that by then we were five fully grown teenagers, so there were legs and arms everywhere, but no seatbelts, of course. We had two tents, a primus stove, a few clothes, and of course some ‘weed’. With all the students, and its proximity to London, Oxford was awash with drugs, and we’d all been smoking dope/weed since were about 16, and it was smoking weed that kind of bound us all together – it ticked all the boxes: it was illegal (tick), our parents disapproved (tick), our teachers disapproved (tick), it was supposedly potentially harmful (tick), and above all, of course, it got us completely stoned out of our heads! (tick)
Setting off on our Summer Holiday!
Crossed wires at the party!
Anyway, we set off on our great holiday, but sad to say, the reality didn’t quite match the expectation. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time, but there was a definite absence of bikini clad beach babes, and as that was the main focus of the holiday, it was a big downer. Our first port of call was to a party somewhere in Somerset that was being held by a girl that Gazza had met whilst on an outdoor adventure holiday he’d been on a week or so before we set off. What we didn’t know at the time was that this was a particularly bad idea.
We didn’t know then that when you’ve had a brilliant time with someone you’ve met briefly on holiday as part of a little group, and got on so well with them, it probably isn’t going to be the same when you meet them again later, away from the fun and frolics of the holiday, in a very different environment - and when their boyfriend's around! And so it was to prove in this case.
We arrived at the (very big) house where the party was due to take place, and where we would be staying, but even to completely socially unaware teenagers, it was clear from the very start that we weren’t welcome. The girl who Gazza knew, and whose party it was, wasn’t there when we arrived, and we were met by her mother who clearly wasn’t relishing the prospect of welcoming five weird looking teenagers anyone hardly knew into her house, and she didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms.
The party, when it finally happened was, of course, a total disaster. Not only did we not know anyone there, but it was very clear that for whatever reason, we were most definitely not welcome at the party. Whether her boyfriend had become jealous at her new found friendship with Gazza or what, I don’t know, but the atmosphere was decidedly hostile, and the girl (I’ve no idea what her name was) never spoke to us or welcomed us, or introduced us to anyone the whole evening. It was also ironic, because there was something that we and all her friends had in common – we all owned and drove Minis!
The drive was full of a variety of Minis, including ours, and we could have had a great chat about our cars etc. and had a great time, but as it was it was the reverse: we weren’t seen as part of the family of Minis – we were the competition.
After a very unsatisfactory evening we all made our way to our room (five boys sharing a room – it was almost as tight a squeeze as in the Mini) and slept as best we could.
Running like a Dog!
The next morning we got up, and were greeted in the usual way by the girl’s mother (the girl wasn’t up yet) – with a forced smile. We had a quick brecky, loaded the car up, and waved our goodbyes to mother and girl, who had forced herself from her bed to wave us off.
However, as soon as I started the car, I knew there was something majorly wrong with the engine; it was running really rough and it was so bad that it wasn’t driveable. Our dismay was probably only outdone by theirs, as the realisation that we weren’t going to be driving away after all dawned on them; they were stuck with us.
Of course we had no breakdown cover of any description, and I only had limited tools with me and even though I was quite mechanical, I was still only 18, with a limited knowledge of engines. The rest of the gang went into the house and watched daytime TV (thankfully the Montreal Olympics were on and the phrase Spatial Awareness as coined by one of the commentators during the gymnastics program, became the comedy quote of the holiday from then on) while I tried to find the fault with the engine.
Shortly after this girl’s boyfriend arrived and she hastily explained to us that she was going out for the day and wouldn’t be back, and off she went. I was now left with mother as my helper. It wasn’t a match made in heaven.
After some examination, I realised that the engine was only running on two cylinders, instead of four, and that was the problem. The other two cylinders were working, to some extent, but only firing very intermittently, and the engine was as rough as a dog. But what was the cause of the engine only firing on two cylinders? Was it sparking on all four? Yes. Was fuel getting through? Yes. Was there compression? Yes.