Back when I was 17 I had an ex-gpo Bedford HA110 van. The night in question, I’d driven myself and a mate from Wigan to Southport for the Floral Hall rock night, where we’d met friends. At the end of the evening, I was persuaded to give them a lift home. Via the late night southern fried chicken shop, obviously. All this was well and good until the passengers started throwing chicken bones at me. I retaliated by yanking the steering wheel from side to side till they stopped.
Then I saw flashing blue lights further down the main road. A roadblock had been set to and it looked like they were only pulling suspicious vehicles so I shouted to everyone to call down. There was no such response so I pulled into a side road and turned to berate my gracious guests. As they raised that I wasn’t joking they became quiet and I turned back to resume the journey, just as someone knocked on my drivers window. It was a policeman who’d seen me swerving all over the road and thought I was drunk and had left the main road to avoid the roadblock. Ooops
“Have you been drinking?”, he asked.
“No”, I replied, ” I’m the designated driver, I’m taking this lot home but they were chucking stuff at me so I was swerving to make them stop.”
“This lot?”, he asked, looking at my two seater van. ” How many are back there? “
“Eeeerrm…. Seven?”
He walked round to the back and opened the doors to reveal three lads down each side of the van and one in the middle. Nine people in a two-seater van. I had visions of nights in jail and some serious explaining
“You lot, calm down, he’s doing you a favour else you’d be walking. You, drive carefully!”
And with that he walled back to his car and left. Phew.
It was only years later it occurred to me that he may have been worried about seven lads jumping out and causing mayhem when he was not visible from the main road