A40 Farina Club

This first one was witnessed by me...
In the 1990s the Ashmolean Museum in the centre of Oxford had its slates covering its main galleries roof replaced. No ordinary household slates these, each one was five feet by four feet and four inches thick. They were delivered by a fleet of articulated lorries over two days, arriving to a militarily timed precision necessitated by the fact the lorries had to swing completely across Beaumont Street in order to reverse onto the museum's forecourt for unloading.

Because they crossed the public footpath, the law dictated a "banksman" must be positioned at the rear of the trailer to prevent passers-by from trying to nip behind the moving vehicle. I was returning to work one lunchtime when I witnessed this exchange between the banksman and a clearly very aggravated driver who had already turned his artic across the road and blocked the traffic:

"... and I says you cannot back that wagon over the footpath 'cos your audible reversing warning device ain't working."

"Look mate, I've got forty ton of stone over these axles and I ain't taking it back to the quarry. Just keep a sharp lookout and I can drop the load."

"Not without a working reversing alarm you're not."

"Right," said the driver, storming back to his cab and climbing aboard. Crashing the gears into reverse, he stuck his head out of the window and began yelling at the top of his voice: "Warning, this fuc*ing vehicle is reversing. Warning, this fuc*ing vehicle is reversing! "

And he did.

This second story came to me from an old school chum who had joined the army (Junior Leaders' Regiment) where, in time, he was trained in fixed-wing flight followed by helicopter driving. He retired at 45 and became a pilot for Southern Electricity, flying a 'line inspector' across the hilly countryside of Devon, Dorset and Cornwall, checking that the power lines were in good order.

They'd started early one summer's day because the cabin of a slow-moving helicopter becomes uncomfortably warm by early afternoon. As they were hovering near one particular pylon at a remote location, the gearbox driving the rear rotor failed. The loss of sideways thrust threw the machine into a tight turn as the engine's torque - unchecked by the rear rotor's balance - took control.

They were only some (some ! ) sixty feet above the ground and so made a swift, power-off descent. Unfortunately they thumped down onto a steep slope: the aircraft rolled sideways, the still-rotating main rotors promptly snapped off as they hit the turf, and the remains of the machine rolled away down the hill.

Coming to a rest, the occupants lost no time in clambering out and distancing themselves from the wreck. At that moment a milk-collection tanker came grinding along the lane towards a nearby farm. The shocked driver drew up and shouted over the hedge, "Are you two okay?"

Looking back towards the now merrily-blazing remains of their helicopter they ruefully replied, "Yes thanks."

At which point the driver said, "Thank God for that" - and slowly trundled away up the hill . . .

Back in 1970, I was working in London and living near Newmarket and commuted to work each morning. One particularly damp misty morning I was thrashing my MkII 1600 Cortina along the journey, entering the outskirts of Baldock from Royston, I knew there would be the usual queue down the slope to the first traffic lights but was not prepared for the traffic some way ahead to be applying brakes to clearly stop and join the obviously extended queue which reached up to the corner right at the top of the slope. A long series of very rapid cadence braking ensued with my rapid progress on the slippery surface clearly not sufficient to achieve the required left turn to join or demolish the afore mentioned queue. Things appeared to be happening in a version of slow motion as the brain switched on overdrive and I started to plan the spot in the hedge on the far side of the corner. What a joy, a jam sandwich Rover SDI police car appeared in full view as he climbed the slope from the lights and started to turn the corner. Even further joy when the bright spark who was driving spotted me arriving at the scene of the imminent accident at good turn of speed and for some still unknown reason, decided to stop on the spot making his driver’s door the absolute bulls eye of my intended target and he and his partner sat there with horror fixed faces. Fortunately my frantic efforts continued for the last forty or so feet to the accident. Suddenly, for no real reason with about twenty feet left, the road surface dried and the braking started to have an effect, also the fact the front wheels were on full left lock turned the car into the corner. The effect of this literally last second grip was to stop my car just behind the last car in the queue, perfectly positioned in my lane on the apex of the corner and right alongside the police car, door to door. Brain still in overdrive, I decided to sit tight and looked straight ahead as if nothing was amiss. After some seconds, I was aware of someone knocking on my driver’s window, I turned to see the driver’s glaring face, I wound down my window, ready for the ensuing outburst and instructions that would lead to my pending doom. All I got was “Very clever”, at which point he drove off.

Phew... close call. Your mention of "the scene of the imminent accident" reminded me of an old aircraft engineer friend of mine who worked on a number of makes during the war. Fred told one nervous pilot, on being assured that his twin-engined Wellington was now okay after one of its engines refused to start, that should by some chance that engine might fail during the take-off run, the remaining engine would take him straight to the scene of the crash!