It must have been in the hard (but not as hard as '62/3) winter of '63/4. There had been a dump of snow, then a "high" had settled; the roads were hard packed snow and very icy. I fired up the Isetta (never any trouble) in the freezing dawn, huddled into my greatcoat and set off from Breighton. The first few miles were over country lanes until I turned onto the A19 at Escrick.
However, I'd been driving it for a few months now and was quite confident in the thing. There was no traffic on the lanes, I happily four-wheel-drifted round the bends, reached the A19 which was "black-top" (so no trouble through York - or on the other side) until I turned off for Linton-on-Ouse, on the back roads again for the last lap.
All went well until I got to Newton. There is a long, straight village street, and at the end a solid stone wall and a right angle bend over the old stream bridge. The weak winter sun had warmed the street a little. There was an evil glitter on it. Better be careful now.
I left the brakes alone, but played scales on the gearbox to use the back end as a sea-anchor. We'd slowed almost to walking pace as I was coming up to the bend. I tapped the brakes, and gingerly turned the wheel. The car stopped dead in its tracks - then started to rotate, quite slowly and smoothly, clockwise.
Only once had this happened to me before - in winter '47, late at night I'd stopped my old wreck at a traffic signal in Southport. Luckily there was nothing else about, but the thing had kept spinning for quite some time. This time I
think I'd gone round once, and was just starting on the second turn. Over the bridge came a J2 RAF van.
He was travelling slowly and carefully, but braking action was about nil, neither of us could do anything about it. It wasn't much of a bang, but he punted me right across the road before we stopped and were able to get out (very precariously !) and assess damage. The J2 was unharmed - only a bit of my paint on the offside front bumper which had punched into my port quarter. But, although there was a fair dent, it was my lucky day, too - I'd taken it on the one spot of the bodywork which caused hardly any internal damage at all. And mechanically it was still perfect.
Once he'd assured himself that his J2 was all right, the MT driver's only concern was that I might try for damages from the RAF, but I calmed him, pointing out what was obvious - in the conditions it was a pure accident and nobody's fault; no claim could possibly succeed.
Most ironic of all: it was
our ATC van, carrying an ATC crew out to the tower at Rufforth, which was used as a RLG for Linton. (Supplementary question: who provided the crash vehicles there ? - certainly not me). And of course there wasn't any point in their going out at all - Linton may have been fit to fly later that day, but Rufforth certainly wouldn't have been. I suppose it had been a case of no one with the nous to say "Stay where you are !" till after Briefing. When we'd disentangled ourselves, they continued on their way and I carried on to Linton.
"You're late!", said SATCO accusingly. "Yes, Sir", I said brightly: "I've just had a crash with our J2 on the way here". He turned pale (Command were very hot on road traffic accidents after the previous winter's woeful toll). I did my best to assure him that his precious J2 was unmarked (he wasn't in the least worried about
me), but even so he insisted on my completing an MT Accident Report (Form ???). When asked on it to state my speed, I waggishly wrote:
"Forward speed - Nil, Rotational speed - about 4 rpm". As I heard no more about it, I suppose that ended in the bin.
Bubwith village garage pulled out the dent, but a lot of paint came with it. In my garage there was a hardly touched can of some pale buff gloss enamel left behind some years before. I spent a happy couple of hours of unskilful brush work on the Isetta; it wasn't exactly in concours condition but good enough - and I even remembered to tell the Licencing Authority !
Goodnight, all.
Danny.
" It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive".