A sad tail…

CHRIS BENNETT recently had an interesting experience…

GERARD Hoffnung was a German born English writer, composer and cartoonist who flourished in the period after the Second World War.

His theme was usually musical, but his wit and humour and his sense of timing won him a great following, especially on the wireless. His cartoons were, almost without Exception, and his composing abilities were respected. They were also eccentric. He composed an orchestral work dedicated to the American President Hoover, which had parts scored for three vacuum cleaners and a number of other electrical household appliances.

But perhaps his most famous story was that of the bricklayer.

I was sharply reminded of this form of humour last week.

A friend had taken my car to the shops, accompanied by a visitor from Cape Town.

After a short while they returned. It was about two o’clock and so an afternoon nap was indicated. Two hours later the nap ended with a bang and a crash. My car was no longer in its carport.

The car had, almost sneakily, edged very slowly backwards; it was not in gear and the handbrake had been applied too lightly.

After two hours of tardy creep the car reached the point in the driveway where the angle of dangle increases very sharply. Friends have said it’s a bit like reversing down a mine shaft. The car needed little further encouragement, gathered speed and shot down the driveway. The wheels were locked straight so the path of the car didn’t change one iota.

At the bottom of the driveway I have a sliding electric gate, kept in a state of genteel shabbiness, like the whole of the outside of my garden in order to give the impression of poverty. Which, as it happens, is an accurate impression.

The gate was closed. By now the car had gained such velocity that it met the gate in what can only be called a resounding embrace; the gate embraced the rear end of my car and wrapped it neatly in galvanised steel bars, as one would wrap a slab of butter in grease-proof paper.

At this point the car’s progress was slowed somewhat and the gate fell off. The car continued on course for the other side of the road. On arrival it bounced into a ditch and hit a tree.

I was awakened by what sounded like something one might hear in the middle of an Afghan desert or a crowded Baghdad market.

I cautiously approached the bottom of the driveway and there was the car, its nose pointing snootily in the air.

The insurance company was, understandably, rather disbelieving and my friend at Margate Panel Beaters, the worthy Jochun, just looked at the damage and sighed. The car appeared have had its back window cleaned by someone wielding a front-end loader. Also its back lights. In fact its back everything.

Nothing daunted, Jochun said this was not as bad as it looked and would be fixed.

The insurance company is still scratching its collective head. The moral of the story is always leave the car in gear.

My friend Fanie fixed the gate. All’s well that ends well.