Desperate dash after wheel of misfortune!

WHEN I lived in Lancaster in the 1970s, I built a ‘special’ — a Morris Minor with a Darth Vader glass fibre body shell grafted onto a four-door Moggy.

It had a Fiat 1600 GT engine, a five-speed gearbox, Fiat back axle and discs all round. It could do almost 115 mph in a straight line but lacked a bit of general handling.

I had a lot of fun with it, except on one particular day. Travelling to Lancaster from Morecambe, I was approaching the old two-lane bridge over the River Lune when the right rear of the car dropped. I pulled up as my offside rear wheel overtook me. Quick as a flash, I was out of the car and giving chase. I was wearing an ankle-length, fake sealskin flared coat with a zebra collar — no sniggering please — which I had made myself. So there I was, legging it after my expensive wheel (I had no spare), when it became clear that it was not going to carry on over the bridge but was instead heading to the left and towards the river. Redoubling my efforts to overtake the wheel — coat flapping, knees reciprocating at very high speed somewhere near my chin — I slowly gained ground. Together, hunter and hunted travelled past half a dozen very amused Lancastrians at a bus stop.

The wheel, however, did not make the river. Instead, it hit a concrete bollard to the left of the bridge and bounced back straight past me. It was now travelling at about the same speed in the opposite direction. Completing a Tom-and-Jerry turn, I set off in pursuit. Once again I passed the bus queue — noting, with annoyance, they were helpless with laughter. Meanwhile, the wheel was heading back to the car. Within yards of its starting point, it ran out of steam, described ever-decreasing circles and toppled onto its side. Puffed out, I glared at the wheel, glared at the car and glared at the bus queue, who were considering breaking into applause.

After stealing a nut from each of the other three wheels, I put the runaway back on, climbed in and drove over the bridge. Glancing in the mirror at the rabble at the bus stop, all hanging on to each other, I hoped it was the last bus they were waiting for and, better still, it had broken down.

Christopher Brookes, Abergwesyn, Powys.