| The Beached Whale |
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A whale? I hear you say. Why yes of course. Though the reasons behind it's birth are unknown.
Taking it from the beginning....
Having a birthday in August can be a bit of a bummer really. Always the youngest in the year and all, with the school terms beginning in September.
Though that was a pain, what made it worse was the fact that everyone I seemed to hang around with at collage had birthdays in September - November time.
So when it came to 17, the year of the driving license, it was a right downer watching everyone I knew learning to drive and getting cars.
Not one to be left behind I obviously wanted to do the same. So about 2-3 months before my 17 birthday, on one sunny Friday afternoon, I set off in search of a car...
Why I suddenly decided I needed a car that afternoon, having previously not given any thought what-so-ever as to what I would get, I don't know. But hey I was young, 16 for goodness sake, now was the time to be immature and make silly decisions. And the first one I made was visiting "Big Mikes". Now for most ordinary, sensible people, the name would put you off, "Big Mikes", it doesn't sound professional does it. However, if that hadn't put you off, how about the huge sign outside the yard saying something along the lines of:
All vehicles are sold as seen. The owner does not accept any responsibility what-so-ever and all vehicles are intended for towing away.Now it wasn't that I hadn't noticed this 6ft high sign or anything, or the fact that about 110% of the cars were not even good for scrap. Oh no. That didn't matter. What did matter was there was this strange blue thing stood out the front of the forecourt all glistening and shiny. The fact that I had never seen anything like it before (it was an oldie before my time you see) may have also had something to do with it. It also had all the extra bits which every young lad wants: alloy wheels, loud exhaust, shiny-chromie bits and of course that little bit of character. I put a deposit down there and then.
Not being old enough to drive, never mind never driven. I got a good friend to drive it home for me, Stew. Now how many is that? Third or fourth mistake? It was only about 5 miles home or so, and most of the way he was really good. Then just round the corner from my house his male hormones took over. With a mighty rev of the engine and a drop of the clutch, screeching tyres were soon followed by a horrible bang :( My pride and joy was dead.
Ok so it wasn't that bad in the end, but if felt like it at the time. After pushing the car the remaining distance home, along with further inspection, it was found that one of the drive shaft couply bits had sort of mangled into a blob of metal. After searching what seemed like nation wide, another friends father managed to get me the required bit, and it was up and running just before my 17th birthday. I didn't learn to drive in it, but after 4 weeks had passed my test anyway and me and the whale were loose!
Why the whale still? Dunno really. I think it was Mason who first named it so why not as him. However, one sunny day while working on the thing, with an audience of onlookers taking the piss about my whale, I removed the rocker cover. Only to find a huge deposit of white sludgie stuff. Resembling, what was soon described by one of the onlookers as, whale blubber. That was it. The name was never going to go then. And of course it didn't.
I only had the car about a year before selling it for �300, which after buying it for �475 + road tax, seemed like a great loss. But the suspension was knackered only allowing left hand corners to be taken without arch scraping. It stayed around the town for a little while, until I got a court summons for out of date tax: the guy I sold it too never changed owners. I wrote back telling the authorities I'd sold the car and never heard from them again. Pretty soon afterwards the car disappeared altogether.
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