THE WINDMILL EXPRESS

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