Nuts and bolts of teaching and cars not so far apart

Areport in the paper says car mechanics take longer to learn their trade than some teachers. It is a bit surprising because you would expect teachers to have many years of training and I am sure they do. However, you may not think of mechanics doing quite so much learning to lie under a car and fiddle about with a spanner but they too have a very responsible job. They need to do it properly for safety reasons. And, of course, because difficult customers like me will keep coming back until they do it right.

You can compare mechanics’ jobs to teachers’ roles because of all the responsibility. However, some mechanics take the comparison with other professions too far. One outspoken grease monkey – let’s call him Calum – had a go at a heart surgeon who took his car in. Calum said to him: “Listen mate, I do exactly what you do. I also open hearts, take valves out, grind them, put in new parts and when I finish, this will keep going for years. So how come you get 200 grand a year but I only get 20 grand?” The surgeon smiled at Calum and said: “Because I do it with the engine running.”

It takes skill to be a mechanic. I have just been looking up the job descriptions of some vacancies. Number one is that you have to like cars. They also want people who have strong reading, maths and computer skills. Of course. There are all kinds of computers in motors nowadays. It also says here that an ideal mechanic must be a good communicator who can clearly explain their car problems to customers. They must also be cheerful as dull mechanics get less repeat business. Hmm, hadn’t thought of that.

One of the happiest people I know is a mechanic. Iain Ross once told me he wanted to do nothing else except fix people’s cars in his wee Stornoway garage because that was what made him truly happy. He didn’t want a cushy job with twice the money or a limousine or several holidays a year in the tropics. He just has to lift a bonnet to lift his spirits. I’m pretty much the same myself. I just have to lift a few spirits and my bonnet flies off.

When I told Mrs X the other week that I was taking her out for drinkies galore, she got very excited. She was probably dreaming of a few wee Drambuies in a darkened snug somewhere but when the cab pulled up at An Lanntair gallery she was convinced she was getting a wee scoff in the restaurant to go with her Buies. Not so, I took her to see the remake of Whisky Galore. We decided we probably wouldn’t like it because we both loved the original – me especially since I met one or two of the oldtimers who were youngsters in the first film in 1949. However, we kept an open mind and marched in, sat down and waited for the beakers of red wine to warm the cockles even if the drams from the wreck of the SS Cabinet Minister would not.

Despite the mixed reviews, the strange new faces and the inevitable criticism over not coming over here to these islands to film it, we thought WGII was great. Of course there are similarities – the story cannot be changed that much – but there are new twists, new jokes . . . but still no more wheesky. It makes a refreshing change from the starkness of the old black and white classic and is genuinely funny.

Director Gillies MacKinnon has done a good job and I didn’t expect to take to Eddie Izzard as buffoon Captain Waggett or Gregor Fisher being sentimental without the benefit of a manky string vest. See it. Feel it. Love it.

The next day I was still laughing at the jokes and I was a teeny-weeny bit absentminded. I went to put fuel in my van but I was giggling at the stern cailleach so much that I drove away without putting the fuel cap back on. When I noticed it, I shot back to the filling station but someone had swiped it. Wait a minute, Iain Ross usually has loads of bits and bobs like that. I went in to see him at Ross Towers and he greeted me with his usual wide smile. “What can I do for you the day, cove?” I told him that I only wanted a fuel cap for my van. “He scratched his head, looked at my dusty old Vauxhall Combi and said: “Yeah, no problem. That seems like a fair exchange.”

“An ideal mechanic must be a good communicator who can clearly explain their car problems to customers. They must also be cheerful as dull mechanics get less repeat business

Iain Maciver