’Twas a dark and stormy night. We went as planned to The Royal Standard of England, a 900-year-old pub in Buckinghamshire. Above the festooned hops the visitor may descry a skeleton drinker sitting in the rafters, wearing a Roman soldier’s helmet and holding a pewter tankard in his left hand.
The pub was hard to find on the dark. The last time was a sunny afternoon when we rambled the local footpaths and fondled native Shetland ponies, shaggy creatures no higher than my waist. But we got there all right and had a good meal. When we left the pub the narrow lanes, steeply up and down like a roller-coaster, had turned into little rivers. It wasn’t a night to break down, but we stopped somewhere a few miles from home and the car wouldn’t start again. It’s a Volvo I’ve had since new in 1993 and the more I nurse it through old age (its and mine) the more I get attached. The dashboard instrumentation doesn’t work properly so I assumed we’d run out of petrol. This is where my walk in the wild weather took place, which I’d jokingly craved only minutes before; and very fine it was too. As in the Christmas carol, Good King Wenceslas: “When a poor man came in sight Gathering winter fuel”. Sometimes the rain stopped and that was even better. But when I poured the contents of the can into the tank, the car still wouldn’t start. I assumed the plugs had got wet in those flooded plunging lanes so I called up the AA (Automobile Association) and after an hour or so they sent a van. The mechanic said the ignition coil had died and he did not carry spares because they are model-specific; but as part of the service he would call up a tow-truck. After a further 90 minutes waiting the AA phoned apologetically: the truck would be delayed another hour or so.
This was further proof that the Universe always grants my prayers, unconscious or otherwise. I’d wanted to be closer to the elements. The car was lashed by the rain as we sat inside getting gradually colder. We had finished the crossword, got tired of childish games. It was time to realize we were hungry and thirsty, but also to consider how much worse the situation might be: hurricane, tsunami, earthquakes, famine, road accidents, death, insurgency, American troops forcing regime change upon us. Then I started to think philosphically that a car is only a car when it is in working order. Otherwise, it’s a complex of metal desirous of biodegrading. That will take a while. In the meantime I can be fined for parking, obstructing and/or littering the landscape with scrap metal.
Perhaps it was at this point that we decided to leave the car there and take a taxi home. In the morning I returned to my heap of scrap by bus, a much superior form of transport: jolly driver and passengers, free ride with my pensioner’s pass. The tow-truck man came on time, brought the car back to our one-way street, leaving it pointing the wrong way. I’d have told him to drop it at a workshop but decided to fix it myself. This involved hunting in several spares depots and then returning to them twice more: firstly to exchange the wrong-size spanner and secondly to tell them the old coil didn’t look like the new one. They realized they had given me the wrong one in the right box. Finally this afternoon, the rain and hail lashing down, fortified with white rum in my coffee and some white wine (K and a friend were drinking this in the warm indoors) I managed to bolt things back together. 
I’d given myself a week to fix the car and could have left it till the weather improved, for our daily needs are within walking distance. I was prepared for a possible misdiagnosis where the new coil didn’t help and where I’d traipse to spares depots for days, replacing parts one by one with still no spark at the plugs. I do think it is a miracle that cars start at all.
When I was fourteen I had a little model aircraft engine—a diesel that ran on ether—that I kept screwed to a bench in a shed. I’d turn over the propeller till my finger was blistered and raw, constantly adjusting the throttle and compression, but it never quite worked properly. I remember those fumes and sore finger as if it were this morning.
That’s when I first understood how obsessively introverted I can be, battling with the inanimate, wanting that moment of triumph when it fires up and I have proved a mastery over things. The triumph occurred today, when I turned the key and it started first time. I’m fond of my dented old Volvo. When its time comes, let it have a Viking funeral, no trade-in. Live by gasoline, die by gasoline. Or may its last journey be to a bluebell wood, rejoining Nature, rusting unto oblivion.
And so we act out “near-death experiences”, through attachment to our favourite things, prayers for their healing, inanimate or otherwise.
PS 16th July 2018: I should have got rid of that dreadful car years earlier, but this realization came much later.
a wayfarer’s notes 
perhaps not the piece you intended to write, Vincent, but a fine piece anyway, and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Congratulations on your victory!
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I have an old Honda Accord (1992), that we have christened “Harold”.
Harold was the name my father used to refer to his transient employees. He had a fence company, which I worked for on occasion. They would be called by their real names only if they lasted out a season. I was called Harold while I worked for him, as I did not last.
Poor Harold has a leaky radiator, and frozen calipers on the rear brakes that complain loudly when I drive him.
He has 210,000 miles on him now, and I don't have the money to fix his ailments. I fear he will not last through the winter.
We love Harold. He is the only car we have ever owned. And he has served us valiantly. The engine still works reasonably well, in spite of some over-heating this summer due to the leaky radiator.
I have been as kind as I can, as I take him only on short trips these days, but soon I may have to let him have a long rest.
My daughter is just now showing an interest in driving, had Harold lasted, he may have been her 1st car. But I don't think it was meant to be.
He deserves to be called by his real name, but I cannot think of him as anything but trusty old Harold, the loyal beast of burden who has served us well.
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O thanks Hayden. You'll see the subsequent piece in DD as well, but it isn't the one I intended to write either.
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Your father's practice is like that of some ladies who referred to their maidservant as Jane no matter who was the incumbent. But what made that insulting was that they did it to the servant's face, which I presume your father didn't do.
I can't tell you the mileage on my Volvo as the display froze at 137,000. It has so many quirks I don't even take it to garage any more as they would overheat it or drain the battery. (the engine fan is now operated from a switch I installed on the dashboard, instead of tripping on and off automatically.)
I must think of a name for the volvo. Perhaps Knut?
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Ah, car stories, like the one that 'got away', the biggest 'fish' the best car, for the Mexicans, a truck is a 'her' and a mans' best friend, but a car, a 'he' and as male to male, a potential adversary and opponent.
I wrecked thirteen cars in Europe over three years, in my young 20s. Had 3 kinds of drivers licenses and the authorities took each one. I use to work on their parts in my living room, my wife cringing and cursing from the kitchen, about rugs and upholstery, ah, the car came first, lol. That eventually came to an end, thankfully to all, even me!
Now in the USA, hating to be the harbringer of bad news in capitalist trends, I have to tell you that they are instituting a government program of 'escalated obsolescense' or some such name meaning the same, where cars over ten years old will not be allowed on the roads, and eventually they want to force even the poor off the streets with a even newer car demand. Foretells bad things, like in one of your posts Vincent, turning people into domesticated and fenced animals, herded into lots and bred for nothing but markets and consumption.
Need serious change!
I second Hayden, terrific writing, great reading Vincent!
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Actually, my father did call guys Harold, to their face. But if you were to know my father, you would realize the light hearted nature of this ribbing.
When I 1st started working for him, he sent me to the truck for a pipe-stretcher. As there is no such thing as a pipe-stretcher, this is his way of attempting a gotcha. And in my case I had turned on my heals toward the truck before I realized the jest, so yes the guys had a laugh at my expense.
Everyone was in on the jokes, and it was his way of defusing tension and helping providing occasional relief from a physically draining day.
For those that stayed on, they were rewarded generously by my father. More than he was obligated to provide in terms of support as an employer.
Many troubled young men benefited from his generosity. My father died in debt, but his legacy was not his business (much to my brothers chagrin), but his kindness and generosity.
He often built fences for people in rough areas of town that were looking to protect their families and property, for much less than it cost him.
I always admired him for this.
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Vincent, hope you don't mind that I linked to this post to draw people's attention to the pic of the pub – you know my current obsession with building – I'm pretty sure this is a lime-plastered cob building. Do you know?
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Of course, you can link any time. I don't know what the thing is called. We tend to use the generic term “half-timbered”, especially when the outside is done like this. In the Royal Standard's case the outside is done in all sorts – bricks, timbers etc: follow this link for a view.
I never heard “lime-plastered cob” as an expression.
But I am glad you are going ahead with building. I know you have been thinking about these things for a long time. Architecture has fascinated me for years.
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