It's
a Rum Life Book Five
Northcote
Diary 1994 to 2008
THE
WINDMILL EXPRESS
(short
version)
 |
The Windmill Express with William and May providing the power. |
 |
| The actual “Windmill Express” as it arrived after being built new by Andy from Croxdale, County Durham (picture front and to the left) and his friend Steve from Hetton. Andy and Steve donated the dray to the centre after building it from all new materials and land Rover running gear and hydraulics. Also helping is John, see story (front right) from Grimsby. |
You
will more than likely have just read the Straw Bale Story and this is
the sequel......
IT
HAPPENED IN ALFORD
Now
we jump several years to about 2002. Alford, a small market town just
north of Spilsby had asked us to implement a horse drawn ‘free
taxi’ type service in their town to coincide with their regular
craft markets during the summer months. Being still constantly short
of funds and always looking for different avenues to earn some money,
we agreed.
The
first obstacle was a ‘taxi’ licence. (Still resolved to stay
within the law). Our local District Council began by throwing all
sorts of obstacles in our way and it was only due to Alford Town
Council giving their whole support that we succeed. Alford town even
paid the substantial charge demanded by East Lindsey District Council
for the licence fee. The 20 seat heavy horse dray even had a ‘taxi
plate’!
The
first day of our new venture dawned and one of our helpers, John, who
had a four wheel drive vehicle had agreed to tow our horse trailer
complete with ‘Cracker’ to the site. I was to go a different way
by a longer, quieter route with the actual dray, towed behind my
Subaru pickup truck.
I
had fixed an ‘A’ frame to connect the dray to the tow bar and
arranged proper lights. The only thing missing was brakes on the dray
which were normally operated from its driving seat and worked on its
back wheels. There was no way I could incorporate these into the
towing arrangement.
By
taking the journey carefully, I could not see any real problem
despite the dray being quite large, but no one would travel with me!
PLANS
SCUPPERED
Everything
went to plan until entering Alford and I stopped on a junction just
opposite the church in the town centre. It was a bank holiday and the
traffic nose to tail on this main route to the coastal resorts.
I
waited my turn and manoeuvred slowly into the traffic flow but
unbeknown to me the ‘A’ frame had become dislodged from one end
of the turntable at the front of the dray behind me. A small cotter
pin had twisted on its shaft and managed to spring out of place. The
shaft had moved sideways and only one end remained located on the
dray drawbar. As I moved forwards and to the left the dray followed
to begin with, I could sense nothing untoward, but as I then turned
to the right on the next bend, the dray continued straight on and
even though it was only travelling very very slowly, it managed to
mount and travel across the pavement and lodge itself in the front
window of the local art gallery, pushing the adjacent brickwork back
by several inches!
By
this time the ‘A’ frame was shaped like a ‘U’ and the whole
scene was covered in shattered ‘georgian’ bow window frame and
what seemed like all the glass from every window in the area.
The
bank holiday traffic began piling up behind me and the first thing I
managed was to trip over the remains of the ‘A’ frame and fill my
palms with broken glass. Eventually I pulled the dray out of the shop
window and resecured it to the pickup truck. Borrowed a brush from a
kind shop owner three doors away, left a brief note of explanation on
the broken shop window and prepared to move off. I only had about
three hundred yards to travel to the site where we were to begin our
day.
During
all these comings and goings and dodging of impatient traffic winding
their way past me, I had noticed a gormless looking chap in the
doorway of a rundown looking premises opposite; he stared at the
situation and rather than offer any assistance took out his mobile
phone and began to dial. I think I knew who he was dialling too!
John
was already on site and wondering where I had got to. After
enlightening him as to the hazards in the streets of Alford I
despatched him to the local windmill to try and locate a mobile
welding technician. (ever hopeful at 8.30am on a Bank Holiday
Saturday)
The
drawbar of the dray was sufficiently damaged so that it could not
function for the initial turnout of the ‘Windmill Express’ ride
service, a name created for special publicity for these events.
I
began to dismantle my cobbled up and broken ‘A’ frame watched
over by Cracker the horse when a large white saloon car arrived with
red strip down the side and ‘Police’ in bold letters all over.
The
constable was not unduly perturbed and invited me to sit in his
passenger seat while he ascertained the facts of the morning’s
incident. After a few moments he wished he hadn’t as I began to
drip copious amounts of blood all over his carpets.
IT’S
A SMALL WORLD
He
raised his eyebrows at the mention of ‘Windmill Express’ and I
had to explain that it was only a name and what it was all about! I
explained what had happened and where I had come from. At the mention
of Heavy Horse Centre his ears pricked up and his eyes concentrated
firmly on my face.
“Haven’t
we met before,” he asked. “I seem to remember something about a
land rover and trailer of straw,” he continued.
I
quickly explained that from that day I had been particular to stay
within the law and everything today was legal and roadworthy.
He
had a look at everything including the horse and could see where the
cotter pin had broken on the drawbar of the dray resulting in the
accident. He knew I had left a note for the shop and told him I would
be around to see them when they opened their premises. He asked me to
produce the relevant vehicle papers for the truck at our local Police
station and that was the last I heard of the incident.
Oh,
it cost our insurance company over £2000 to repair the shop window
and damaged brickwork and I must admit it never looked so good
afterwards.
John
did actually manage to find the local mobile welder and with the
draw-bar fixed the ‘Windmill Express’ did turn out to work in the
town for the day.
ends
