Well, as I get older, I seem to be remembering accidents and near misses I have encountered through life. In no order at all I will be adding to the following list as and when I remember to?
Once, on the way to Saltaire medical centre I was at the pedestrian zebra crossing, a car stopped but I decided to wait, as I decided to wait an articulated lorry rammed the car, which in turn went at great speed over the crossing, just where I would have been. The driver had not used the handbrake as you are supposed to at these crossings.
My first ever bicycle race was with the East Bradford Cycling Club. In 1978 this was an evening ’10’ starting near Pool, and heading towards Harrogate – a very busy road. it was the days when time trails could turn in the road. When I reach the marshal – Jim, I turned thinking he meant that the road was clear with his arm out. Vehicles just missed me, Jim – rightfully, later on gave me a massive bollocking, but I didn’t know it was my responsibility to check the road was clear.
1984, and coming home on leave, my RAF colleague David? was driving his three wheeler Reliant Robin on the motorway, I nodded off, when my head jolted up, Dave’s head had just slumped to the driving wheel! I mad sure he woke and I most certainly didn’t fall asleep when ever he again gave me a lift from RAF Lyneham.
In the mid 1970’s my Hornby trainset was on a board. Now, I’m trying to remember, I once plugged the transformer in, and the train shot off the tracks, I checked the old transformer and it was turned off, so again I put the train on the tracks, and it blasted off the board, so, I unplugged the transformer. As I’ve got much older I’ve realised the full 240 volts had made it onto the track, the old transformer was faulty. The house fuse box didn’t ‘blow’ as I think thick fuse wire was used on all in the box, so no fuses would blow. Massively dangerous, if I touched the track would it have blown me across the room? I’m not sure what I did after that.
My worse experience has started bothering me quite alot. When aged about 10 years old my dad took me into his place of work Dockmill Scouring, it was a Sunday. I found one of those curved double spiked gadgets that are used to manually pull bales of wool with. So, I thought it was wrongly bent and decided to try and straighten it in the wool drainage? rollers. Sure enough they pulled the gadget through, and then my fingers started to get dragged in. Fortunately my dad was nearby and pressed the stop button, otherwise that would have been my life ending, urrggghhhh, this is a really difficult memory. My fingers still show some damage, especially when the sarcoidosis kicks in. Jeez.
