Author:
Dave Parker
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Date Posted: 20:25:36 02/07/05 Mon
As I mentioned earlier, my driving test, taken whilst we where in Devizes, was a rare experience. I had learned to drive whilst a boy soldier and too young to actually own a driving license. We used to drive Austin 1 tonners, endlessly, around the camp (Bramcote being an old Fleet Air Arm Airfield and private property) hence, no need for a provisional, until we turned 17 and where let out onto the roads, having obtained the said provisional. One quick aside here, before I get on with the main story. Our instructors where civvies and one day I was instructed to "pull over, where that policeman is standing, up ahead!". Being very conscious of the fact that a 'Bobby' was watching my every move, I checked my mirrors, signaled, checked my mirrors and pulled up at the exact spot where the policeman stood, in, what I thought, was a textbook manoeuvre. Because we where so high up in the cab of the 1 tonner, I could only see the top of the helmet of the bobby but I heard him thump the door of the instructor and, when he wound down his window, I heard "Good bit of driving son! now move this wagon off my bloody foot!". I had driven too close to the verge of the road, which had no kerbstones and, lucky for me and the policeman was just grass, and parked on his foot, which had sunk into the, rain softened, ground.
Back to Devizes. Our BSM or maybe a TSM at that time was a WOII, who's name escapes me at this time but I think was Sheldon?, was the Regimental Testing Officer. He drove one of those big Citroen cars with the hydrolastic suspension! I had been pestering him to take me on a test for ages, with the idea that he would give me a date and I could scrounge some driving time from Ken Meffan to brush up on my driving skills. On this particular day, he was going off to Salisbury to collect his new car, and decided to kill two birds with one stone, shut me up and solve his transport problems in one. Telling me to report back to him with one Landrover (LWB, for the use of) and another, qualified driver to accompany me back from Salisbury, in fifteen minutes and off we'd go! Well, I was totally unprepared and in one hell of a flap. I did just about everything wrong, including stalling three times before we had even got to the camp gates and I was convinced I had failed. He pulled me over to the side of the road and told me to "settle down, the test doesn't start until we leave the camp" and he knows I can do it. To cut a long story short, I drove him all the way to Salisbury without incident and when we got there he told me I had passed! I was to drive back to camp and await his return when he would test my three point turn before passing over my 'pink slip'. Now this is the funny bit. Can you remember the Bty Office and the road outside it? Standing on the veranda of the Bty Office, the road was quite narrow but at the end of it, to our right, where the road joined another road that passed in front of, I think the gun sheds, it opened up a bit. With the instruction to "drive along the road for a bit, then execute a three point turn so that you are facing the opposite direction" the WOII went inside the Bty Office!! So I drove to the end of the road, executed a neat 'U' turn where the road was wide enough and drove back to the Bty Office just as he came back out! Whether this was his intention or not, he congratulated me again and handed over my 'pink slip', much to my great delight.
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