AN EFFECTIVE REPAIR…

When I was in the sixth form, we were considered mature enough to ride motorcycles to school, and sign an attendance book noting our arrival time and reason for any lateness. One morning the clutch cable on my BSA C15 broke and I repaired it with one of those solderless nipples, which has a screw to clamp onto the cable.

On arrival, I duly noted my late arrival time, and added the comment: ‘clutch cable broke, effected roadside repair’.

Later that day I ran into my English teacher. He made no comment on my lateness, but congratulated me on the correct use of ‘effected’.

Since then, sounding confident and the correct use of English has got me out of a number of scrapes. Maybe my school got it right.

Peter Cushnaghan, member 7906