The Learner Driver It was a Saturday afternoon on an extremely sunny day in the summer of 1995. In the middle of a course of driving lessons, I had just finished my regular Saturday morning lesson with BSM (British School of Motoring) and felt like my 30mph rally skills were coming along nicely. On my way up to the the high street I bumped into my mate Davo in the park. Davo was swaggering along and seemed to be bubbling up with excitement. What????? How can this prick be happier than me??… I have just taken over the world in a learner plated Vauxhall Corsa!! Curious as to what was making Davo so happy about I asked him. “Wos appnin Dave?” (cocky youth accent). Davo replied with all the enthusiasm of a lad who had just had his knob touched by a girl for the first time…. “Me, Dayle, Morely, Doogle and Jack (the lads) have just bought a motor from Mocko!! “Yeah?.. What motor is it?” I replied whilst reminding myself that none of these boys had a drivers license. “Yeah mate, its a Ford Escort Mk2. Its a bit banged up but should be alright for a laugh”. Of all the stupid things!!… Anyway I persuaded Davo to wait five minutes in the park whilst I rolled myself a spliff of rocky. This was the usual thing to do when you had a walk of more than 200mtr to undertake. We had to walk to the North Estate at the top of the hill on the Edgware Road, and hoped to see some snatch on the way. I remember sweating my arse off on route, wearing jeans FFS on this hottest of hot days. Just to give you a run down of what my mates were like back then… Davo: Sport mad, former Arsenal fan who was a bit of a miserable fucker at times… not today lad. Dayle: Motorsport mad, womanizer who was always up to dodgy shit.. including the sale of hashish amongst friends. Morely: West ham fan, just up for a laugh, a decent bloke overall. Doogle: QPR fan, hated having the piss taken out of him but loved to take the piss out of others, yet he was a great laugh to be around. Jack: Had lead a sheltered #life up until that point, easily influenced, just up for a crack. And me: I was probably regarded as a little fucker, and a bit of a womanizer too, I am a Gooner. As Davo and I walked past the station we saw Kipper. Kipper was the girl who was always up for a laugh, I’ll leave it to you to decide how she got her name but let me just say… She was the first of the girls in our group you would roll a joint with in the alley on a Friday night. She wasn’t the best looking girl from the neck up but she was probably the most genuine girl you could ever meet (Isn’t that just the way?). Kipper told us she was on her way down to the track behind the market because she had seen Dayle and the rest of the boys down there hanging about. We asked Kipper to let the rest of the lads know we were coming down once we had the motor. “Motor? What Motor?” Kipper’s eyes lit up. Davo just smiled back at her, winked, and told her to let the lads know we’ll be down soon. We made it up to the North Estate in about twenty minutes and one rocky joint later. We arrived at Mocko’s house and he was stood in front garden with car keys in hand.. “Alright Davo… Alright you little fucker.. Hows your sister?”. Mocko was the cousin of my sisters boyfriend. We both greeted Mocko and then walked down the road towards the prize. At first site it didn’t look too bad, from what I remember.. “The brakes are fucked… but the handbrake has a little bit left on it” Mocko kindly advised.. “Thats alright mate, were only going to burn it round the track anyway” Davo replied. As the cash had already changed hands prior to me meeting up with Davo we all stood there looking at the car for a few seconds….. “Hang on” Mocko said… ” Who’s gonna drive it round to the track?” Davo said “I thought you were gonna drive it round for us Mocko?”. Mocko looked at Davo and laughed his fat arse off…. “I aint mate Ive got to wait in for a delivery”. Davo and I looked at each other for a further few seconds before….. “You’ve just come off a driving lesson mate you can do it!!” Davo said. Feeling a mixture of cocky, pressured and challenged I said.. “Fuck it mate I’m feeling confident, I reckon I can do it”. There was a brief burst of laughter before the excitement came when we got in the Motor and Mocko handed me the keys… “Don’t forget the brakes are fucked mate, the handbrake works a bit though”…. A bit! A fucking bit!! I started the engine and did an eight point turn as slow as I could before driving toward the Edgware Road on our way to the track behind the market. We got to the Edgware Road and headed along to the traffic lights leading to the high street. The traffic was as shit as it always was on a Saturday afternoon. We got held at the lights on a red. I remember praying to myself that we never bumped into the old bill, or my mum on her usual Saturday shopping visit to the high street. Just to give you an idea of how stupid the situation was, I was seventeen years old but probably looked around fourteen. Davo didn’t look much older than me. Here we were in this old Ford Escort with practically no brakes on our way to deliver this car to probably its final resting place. If the old bill had even seen us in the busy traffic we would’ve been chewed up and shat out quicker than a dodgy kebeb from Alki’s Delight. The lights went green and I turned onto the high street.. “Not far now Davo” I said starting to think that this had been easy. The traffic on the high street was worse than on the Edware Road but we were getting there at a slow speed when…… “Fuck! I forgot how steep the hill down here is, what about the brakes” said Davo. I have no trouble admitting now that I was absolutely shitting myself at this point. Up until this point I had been in full control of the Motor. As we descended down the hill there was a fair bit of distance between us and the traffic in front. The hill got steeper… The car started to roll.. Despite being told that there were no brakes I still (like a tit) tried to stamp down on the brakes… Nothing was happening… Davo was cracking up with laughter.. The car was gaining speed and the traffic in front was getting closer… In a last ditch attempt I yanked up the handbrake.. It had little effect… CRUNCH!! “FUCK!!”. Suddenly what I thought was a good idea had become a fucking nightmare. I was just waiting for the big fucker in the car in front of me to get out and start kicking the shit out of me when he saw I was a youth. I tell you one thing… If there is a god he was looking down on me that day.. The passenger door of the Honda Accord I had just crashed into opened. Out steps Vikash… Vikash was in our year at Senior School. Davo to his credit got out of the car and persuaded Vikash to get back in his fathers car, his father was driving the car and after a short conversation with Vikash moved on. I could not believe my luck. Luckily at the bottom of the hill was the left turn we needed to take to get down to the market where the boys were waiting. I managed to roll the car down to the bottom of the hill without crashing again before turning into Barnfield Road and then taking a right turn into the Market car park. As we pulled around the corner all the lads, and Kipper, were standing there. As we got closer I could see them all in fits of laughter, literally pissing themselves. We got out of the car and were greeted like hero’s who had just delivered riches for each of our families. The laughter continued.. It wasn’t what I expected… The cunts were laughing at the way I had been feeding the steering wheel with two hands following on from my driving lessons…. Needless to say I have never lived this down.. The car died that evening but will forever be remembered.