WE were due to set out on our safari on Tuesday morning and the car was booked in for service on Monday.
I had been having a lot of trouble with the car. It was brand new and everything on it seemed to be either too tight or too loose. My main complaint was the clutch.
When it was adjusted according to the instructions in the workshop manual, I hit my knee on the steering wheel every time I changed gear. If it was set for a comfortable driving position, the cable fell off every 100km.
On Monday the garage was to make its 14th attempt at a workable compromise.
When the vehicle was returned to me on Monday evening everything seemed to be fine, except that the speedometer was missing. As this was just about the only piece of equipment which had never given trouble, I was rather puzzled.
Tuesday morning found me at the garage. They seemed surprised that I objected to driving 6 000km without a speedo. They were even more surprised when I informed them that it was illegal. There was, they said, nothing they could do. They had no spare speedometers and mine had been sent away for calibration. I started to lay down the law, but decided to burst into tears instead.
It took them precisely 10 minutes to take the speedo out of the manager’s car and put it into mine.
We set off in grand style at five o’clock on Wednesday morning. By six o’clock, we were sitting at the roadside with a conked-out clutch. By seven we had dispatched two passing motorists with messages for the AA, but nothing had happened.
I was now down to the last of my excuses. I might have been able to fix it, but I needed two adjustable spanners and I had only one. David took me at my word and flagged down every passing car to ask for the loan of an adjustable spanner.
Luckily, nobody had one, so my extravagant claims were not put to the test.
By now I was pretty fed up with the situation and thought that a brisk walk might do something to improve my temper. It did more than that, for I found that the age of chivalry was not dead. The third motorist who stopped actually knew something about cable-operated clutches and managed to fix it with one adjustable spanner, a screwdriver and – believe it or not – a riding crop!
I thought that assortment of junk in the boot might come in handy!
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