The last weekend in October was uncharacteristically dry and was thus ideal for a final blast in my Reliant SS1 convertible before it was put away for the winter. An excuse for the drive was provided by the proximity of Mrs Steele’s “significant birthday”.
Although she was going to be taken to Barcelona for the day, I felt it would be nice to have something to hand over to her by way of a gift. I put a Meatloaf tape on the stereo, a baseball cap on my head and pointed the car towards the Gyle Centre in Edinburgh.
I never made it. As I approached the Sighthill Roundabout, the car began to judder. It then cut out and refused to restart. I pushed it off the road and tried a few theories as to what was wrong. Drawing a blank, I called the organisation that prides itself as being “the fourth emergency service”. I then had to wait at the side of a busy road where legions of children relieved the tedium of their crawl into the capital by making faces at me.
A mere five hours after my initial call, I was safely home, though the car was still not running. This was a bit of a beamer for the (very thorough) patrolman, who didn’t like to be beaten and for me too, who likes to think he’s Scotty from Star Trek, able to effect running repairs by the cosmic roadside.
Aye well, it’s hardly a matter of life and death, is it? If it was, our television schedules would be full of dramas about AA patrolmen. You’d see Casualty-style vignettes of pushy parents or covert lovers and know that by the end of the episode their lives would be turned upside-down by a broken clutch cable.
Teaching is not seen as a matter-of-life-or-death job, either. To many people we are far removed from the front line of human drama and trauma. Our job is worthy but not particularly interesting.
Most people will never know the tension of facing an awkward class for the thirtieth time in a session. Few will have experienced the elation of scanning a list of exam results to find that the wee guy who worked his heart out was rewarded with his “B”. As drama, teaching is a slow burner with few quick fixes.
Whether a quick fix will get my Reliant back on the road remains to be seen. It is at present languishing in the garage awaiting my attention. All I know is that when it does eventually fire up, the feeling I get will be curiously similar to the one I had when all three of my Advanced Higher kids passed their unit one NAB first time.
Gregor Steele realises he should have taken the Skoda.
