How to fail your driving test.
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• •
• in two
intensive weeks
Peter Cordwell talks to Martin Huckeit on his return to the office...
IF YOU must fail, fail in style.
Go 200 miles to do it. Fail under circumstances where almost everyone succeeds.
Fail the Huckett way ...
Martin, CM's fearsome News Editor, went all the way to Liverpool to fail his driving test.
Failure was becoming an obsolete word at the Sefton and District Transport School.
Then Huckett arrived to change all that. And to prove, if it still needed proving, that to err is indeed human.
"I blew it," was how Martin broke the news — a typical comment from a "hard news" man brought up on brevity. Mirth is most cruel after failure and once initial tact had been displayed (for fear of a right-hander, if nothing else), mirth took ovc the CM offices.
To put it mildly, a jolly afternoon was had by all — except one Huckett.
But that was nothing to what happened at the print works.
Now printers, as you may or may not know, are particularly sharp when it comes to seeing the funny side of a fiasco. And the QB boys at Colchester must be near the top of the sarcasm league.
Tact was most definitely missing as a howl of hilarity from all quarters greeted Martin's entrance on press day. And a high level of wit was maintained throughout z day which Martin will alway5 recall with a tremble.
The biscuit was probably taken by the production of gift from the lads" — a pair o bicycle clips. And when a copy of Cycling News turned up on Huckett's desk the following morning, we all knew its origin.
Experts reckon that norma learners need an hour of tuition for each year of their age.
At that rate, our Martin — a young-looking 26—should really be drawing his CM pension ... he was in Liverpool for two weeks!
The idea in the first place was a good one, an in-depth look at the courses offered by Sefton. the largest privately owned driving centre in the north-west.
And what better way of doing it than getting our L-plated News Editor to take a course himself?
If it strikes you as strange that one of the top men on a motoring magazine couldn't drive in the first place, well, the explanation is acceptable. "I've always had girlfriends vho could drive," says Iuckett with a grin.
Nevertheless, he left for ,iverpool one Sunday — by rain, of course.
At eight the next day, a cold ind windy morning, he was me of a group of total Arangers eyeing each other iervously on the steps of Feathers Hotel.
Sefton's latest batch of audents were ready, if not all that willing. And after a Five-minute ride in Sefton's own double-decker, they found themselves in the heart of Liverpool's dockland, where the training centre was situated in the now almost defunct Brunswick Dock.
"Right, then," said one of the instructors as they trooped off the bus. "All you hgv lads into the classroom for checking in and registration. Now — who's the journalist?"
Shuffling sheepishly forward, Huckett was taken to a Portakabin which serves as the school's office.
Inside he met John Hughes, one of the company's directors, who introduced Bob Watkins, Martin's instructor, and Sheila, a fellow trainee.
"That's the car out there," said John briskly. "What are you waiting for?"
And so it began, nine days of driving round lovely Liverpool with Bob and Sheila. From nine till twelve, then one till five, with a few seconds off for breathing.
He added, without a trace of a smile: "I had to force clown a couple of pints every night to be in shape for the following morning."
Before the first day had ended, Huckett was experiencing a Liverpudlian rush hour. Somehow he survived, despite several stalls and continual assaults on an innocent gearbox.
"That gave me much-needed confidence," said Martin, "especially as nothing seemed to worry Bob. But progress, in the immortal words of a school report, was not maintained. And by Friday lunchtime, Bob was not very happy with the two learners. Knuckles were about to be rapped.
Bob, usually soft-spoken and mild of manner, hit the roof after a particularly bad morning in which the clutch had seemed to develop a mind of its own.
"At this rate," he ranted, "you wouldn't pass a test next year, never mind next week. Try harder and concentrate more." More sheep impersonations as Martin and Sheila slink off to Rodgers Rendezvous Cafe for lunch. Egon-Ronay recommended, the cafe is only a few hundred yards from Brunswick Dock and serves successes and failures alike.
Back at the wind-swept training centre, Martin is asked to see John Hughes and Ed Davis. What was the problem, they wanted to know.
Our man scratched his head, Stan Laurel-style, and said: "I only seem able to get one thing right at a time.
"If I'm changing gears correctly, I forget about the bloke coming up my outside. And if I keep a sharp eye for road signs, my clutch control goes to pieces. That's the big thing that gets me — that bloody clutch."
"Not to worry," said Ed kindly, "the whole thing should click into place next week." And, d'you know, it did — or nearly did. By the Wednesday, Martin was almost his old, fiery self.
"I was driving around for an hour at a time," he recalls, "and Bob was not picking me up for anything, just showing me the way. I really thought I'd cracked it."
Just to keep Bob on his toes, Martin still managed the odd foul up, like reversing up a pavement and missing a lamp-post by inches. And he never exactly covered himself in glory at a Highway Code quiz between the students and 238 Squadron Royal Corps of Transport.
"Out of a possible nine points, I managed a measly four," says our hero. "The only one I got completely right was about children's interest in ice-cream vans."
(Don't call Magnus, Martin, he'll call you). So to the fateful day and the two o'clock testing time at Garston.
"I was determined not to be nervous," says Martin, "and kept telling myself to relax. The trouble was, I got so relaxed it made me nervous."
Two stalls, some jittery manouevring and hesitant gear work later, the Ministry man was using the immortal words: "I have to tell you —that you have failed."
Bob, John and Ed were not elated. "You should have breezed it," said Ed, who had taken Martin on a dummy run that morning.
One consolation was that the reasons for failure were not major. Nothing that experience couldn't iron out.
But the burning question remains. When will our man take the test again?
"I'd take it tomorrow if I could," was the brave reply. "But next time I'll keep quiet about it!"