Tailgate - The Dark Knight

Ted Connolly remembers his amateur roadside rescue exploits.

THE school that I attended before venturing into the big, wide world didn’t have a careers teacher. No such luxury (and talking of luxury, neither were the school gates crowded out with dappy mums in their four-wheel-drives, taking their little darlings to school). Instead, we were advised to do the best we could with O-levels and, maybe, A-levels, clear off and get on with it.

Thus, I achieved eight O-level passes (not good grades, it must be admitted) and dropped out of A-level English and Economics because, well, they were getting boring and a) I could already speak the language and b) I didn’t have any money to make an understanding of economics of any great use.

I applied for many jobs – in those days, it was all done by conventional mail, no such thing as the internet – and particularly fancied a career in the motor industry, preferably working on cars, as opposed to any sort of managerial role. Thus, I wrote a beseeching letter to the AA (Automobile Association – my beer-drinking wasn’t that far advanced at the time) and asked if there was any chance of becoming a patrolman. The thought of tazzing around in an AA van, free and easy and stopping occasionally to help somebody out really appealed to me. It seemed like the perfect existence.

Back came the reply, and a very polite one, it was, that there were vacancies for patrolmen, but I was simply too young. I was genuinely disappointed, but in the event, things didn’t turn out too badly because a month or so later, I landed myself a job on the local newspaper and have never looked back. In recent years, that’s more due to a stiff neck brought on by age than the need to avoid nostalgia.