Meeting Real People

A big black man with a sticker on his chest saying 'Gift' stood in front of me.  What a funny name!

I love Speeding Courses - you meet a total cross-section of the world at them.

We were divided into 'the red team' and 'the green team' and Gift went off with all the other reds, most of whom looked younger than the greens.  I suspected that they had all done something really bad, rather than going 32mph in a 30.

We trooped in silence (apart from a very large woman wearing biker boots who was observing at the top of her voice what a profit they were making from 20 of us all paying over £100 to attend this course), into a characterless very hot rectangular off-white room; and I sat down next to a bloke with a beard whose sticker said 'Anoy'.  I looked again to discover it actually said 'Andy'.

I thought what a terrifying experience this must have been for my mother, aged 82, who had been caught by a camera doing 34mph (about her top speed); who would have been sitting in the same room a couple of months earlier, wondering what was in store for her, knowing that she has spent her entire life trying to be responsible, to please people, and to behave herself generally, surrounded by the 'great and the good', or the 'great unwashed', or whatever you call normal people who wear t-shirts, hoodies, surfer shorts, and trainers, accessorised with crew cuts and tatoos - sights she's not really used to in her little Dorset hamlet tucked away from the world.

I, on the other hand, knew exactly what to expect.  We were not 'here to be punished.' I had already noted the matey greetings of the advanced driving instructors welcoming us onto the course, with prolific use of Christian names.  And I knew that I would stick out as the most glamorous, best educated, funniest, cleverest, most perceptive and best dressed of the entire motley crew attending.

Wrong.  A lady from Essex, also in biker boots, turned to the big lady and said "You ought to be a comedienne on telly you know." Oi - wot about moi?

Anoy, or Andy, turned out to be cleverer at answering their simplistic questions than I was, and against my better judgement turned out to be the natural leader of our little group.  I think he probably does pub quizes.  He already knew that in 2004 there had been 2,600 deaths on the UK roads.  Or something like that. And he had the temerity to argue with some of the facts presented by the nice people taking the course.  There was also a very funny lorry driver from Newton Abbot who does 130,000 miles a year. Difficult not to get clocked from time to time, with that mileage I would imagine.

His big bug-bear is middle-lane hoggers, as his juggernaut has an inhibitor or whatever they're called that won't let him drive faster than 52mph.  The thing that makes me really cross, which I loudly voiced, although I know I was a little bit pink with heat and embarrassment at my  loud posh accent, is old people.  Dawdlers.  Who make people like me do stupid things and cause accidents.  The shy, boring foreign granny who had described her husband dying in a bus station, looked rather alarmed at my vehemence.  I'm sure she's one of them. They should all take tests at 70.

The jolly man taking the course said we were the chattiest group he had ever taken, and he was sure we would want to be away on time. Probably meaning he did - we were all having a lovely time.  The three hours simply flew, and even the plain digestive biscuit and cheap coffee were a pleasure.

And then all fell apart.  I was wearing Jaeger black trousers, high black suede boots, and a top quality black coat from Frank Usher, my wardrobe as ever bought half price in the sales and in Clarks Shopping Village. I looked rich - well I hope I did anyway.  We wandered back to our cars, and there was Marvin, patiently waiting for me, in his unobtrusive friendly way.  Everyone else had new gleaming Toyota's and Honda's, which they could open as they walked towards them, using their remotes.  I fumbled with the key in Marvin's lock, dived in, reached for my mobile phone and drove off, averting my gaze away from them all, eyes on the road, never, probably, to see a single one of them again.