Here are two humorous articles which were commended by the adjudicator at
the 2005 Scottish Association of Writers annual Conference.
"The
Invaluable Mobile Phone" Arthur Hatfield
"An
Interview with God" Steve Howrie
The
Invaluable Mobile Phone
by
Arthur
“I don’t want a mobile phone, I don't
like them,” I said, knowing I was losing. Daughters can be worse
than wives at nagging, they have the arrogance of a younger
generation. .
“Don’t be silly, Dad,” she said patiently, “at your age
you might fall down. What
then?”
“At my age,“ I
growled, “someone is bound to help me up.”
“Your car could break down
thirty miles from anywhere,” she pointed out infuriatingly.
As I live on an island sixteen
miles long at its furthest I tried
telling her that in such case I would be at least 14 miles out
to sea.
She went on and on about
emergencies - falling downstairs and lying in a heap for days which
(at my age) could be fatal. I
capitulated and received one from her as an early Christmas present. I
practiced a bit without mastering the damn thing and decided to take
it with me when I went to spend Christmas and New Year with her and my
grandson in Derby. My
Grandson, James, is six so I reckoned he could show me how to use it
without revealing my incompetence.
I set off in the car at half-past seven one miserable morning
to catch the eight
o'clock ferry. At
the bottom of my road the steering wheel jerked.
Damn! The offside front tyre was flat.
I started to trudge home for the phone.
Half way up the road I remembered the new mobile phone.
"Where are you?" asked
the nice sounding girl.
"At the bottom of Balmory
Road in Ascog."
There was a pause, then "I
can't find Ascog."
I tried to give her directions
from Rothesay, "No, not Rosyth, that’s it, now come
south."
"I've found Rothesay."
"Right, good, turn left at
the pier."
"It's a very small map."
After
a long time she found something.
"Great," I said, "Come along two miles."
"There's no Balmory
Road."
I told her where it is.
The ‘nice’ girl put a touch of
acid in her voice. "I
can assure you there is no Balmory Road in Ascog."
"I live there," I
yelled.
"Are you B8125?"
"Look," I screamed,
"tell the garage my name, they know me, say the bottom of Balmory
Road."
There was a shocked silence.
"I can't possibly do that, I have to give them a map
reference. They have to
find you."
Eventually with the wheel changed,
the puncture repaired and an enormous
dent in the wing from the garage hand's jack I caught the
half-past nine ferry and was on my way.
An hour and a half lost but maybe I could still arrive before
dark.
On the M74, in driving sleet and
rain, the engine stopped half-way between emergency phones.
Thank God for the mobile phone.
I rang the A A.
"Good morning," said a young man, "er ...
have you already been on to us this morning?"
I explained.
Together we identified my location and he promised attention
within the hour. He
told me not to remain in the car on the hard shoulder.
I got out. The
sleet was in my face, cold and wetting. It is a universal law that on occasions such as this urgent
signals are received from the bladder.
A line of trees was only 30 yards or so away but at the top of
near vertical grassy banking.
When I could hold out no longer I tackled the climb.
I managed up all right, feeling exposed and all sorts of a
fool. Coming down I slid, landed on my backside, flipped over, shoved
my face in the mud and hurtled inelegantly and painfully all the way
down. I landed roughly on
the hard shoulder at the feet of a young policeman.
“This your car sir,” he asked,
poker faced.
I tried to glare at him but with
mud all over my glasses and a great lump hanging from the end of my
nose it was not effective. I
remembered that having a pee out in the
open is an offence called something like ’committing a nuisance‘.
I smiled ingratiatingly. “Car’s
broken down,” I said.
“Yes sir.” He looked up at the trees, “You got help up there?
Could I just
see
your driving licence?”
I dislodged the worst of the mud
and pointed up the slope, “half way up,” I said, “or down,
depends how you look at it, my wallet came out, perhaps you would be
good enough to retrieve it for me.”
"Sit in your car sir," he said through gritted teeth,
“you'll be warmer and much safer than standing there."
I enjoyed watching him.
“Nothing much really,“ said
the A A man 50 minutes later, "You've got a piece of ducting
missing from the manifold to the air filter. Your carburettor is
freezing up, fix you up in a minute.”
He had enough spares in his van to repair Concorde,
unfortunately no ducting.
"Can I get to Derby?" I
asked.
He told me that if I came to a
stop again I could wait 10 to 15 minutes and the heat in the engine
compartment should 'defrost' the carburettor.
He asked if I knew I had a big dent in the front offside wing.
It did happen again; three times
on the motorway. I was just approaching Ashbourne when my mobile rang.
Panic, what does a driver do?
Luckily I was close to a lay-by.
"Where are you?" my daughter asked.
"Ashbourne."
"Oh good, you'll be here in
twenty minutes."
I groaned, "give me forty,
it's pouring down and I can't see a thing."
I cleared some of the rain off the windows, cleaned the
headlights and started off again.
My exhaust fell off before I was
out of the lay-by.
Half-past eight at night in a small market town in rain, sleet
and a howling gale. I didn’t need a mobile phone to tell the various
Gods of the road what I felt like. I roared through Ashbourne and the countryside like a hot-rod
teenager and plunged, unseeing - beyond caring - into the Derby
traffic blinded by the rain, headlights, neon and streetlights; I hit
nothing, I don't know how, nothing hit me and arrived gibbering and
near insane but more or less intact.
"Ah, Dad," said my
daughter with an absent minded kiss,
"just look after James for a minute while I pop across to the
corner shop. I sent you
three text messages, why
didn’t
you reply?"
Text messages?
She called back as she crossed the
road, "did you know you've got a big dent in the wing?"
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