Mine…
We had booked to go on our first ever holiday abroad – two weeks in Corfu. My dad rang the agent to book the holiday but when my mum went to work the next day to confirm things she was told she couldn’t have that week off and could she book for a week later.

We duly did this and got the corresponding flight exactly one week later – a week after British Airtours flight 28M crashed on take-off killing 53 people. The fuselage was still visible over by the hangars as we taxied for take-off.

as a kid standing in my parents hall waiting on my dad to tie his laces before we went to the child minder…..

dads lace on his workboots snapped.

as he was tying a knot to join the lace back together a heap of concrete tiles off the roof of the house left their post and planted them selves into the grass and the car bonnet and windscreen right outside the front door we were about to exit via.

By brother once found about £8 in a pile of horse shit (must have eaten a wallet!) on holiday at Side Farm campsite in the lakes.

Went back several years later and I found £20 on the floor (lucky escape part, I didn’t have to dig through horse poop)!

Can I be the first of many to say my ex-girlfriend?

(That is to say, the first of many to suggest their exes, not mine. Though, thinking about it…)

Can I be the first of many to say my ex-girlfriend?

Jeez, how many boyfriends did she get through?

EDIT :Damn you Cougar with your l33t ninja edit skillz 😉

(-:

In Swindon town center in 89, massively windy and we were stopped from walking down a road due to a crane on a building site swaying around like mad. Felt a slight brush on my back and a loud crash. One of the builders has gone pale and asks me if I am ok. I was nearly taken out by a Kodak sign about 4ft long and and about 3ft tall, I think that would of hurt.

I was nearly taken out by a Kodak sign about 4ft long and and about 3ft tall, I think that would of hurt.

It would have been instant.

LOL

That developed into a joke quickly

lets not be negative about it

On holiday the ex and I paused outside cottage in a quiet lane as her bootlaces were undone. This 5-7 seconds meant that we missed being hit head on by a yokel in his rusty twatchback who was doing 60 round the long blind bend exactly where we’d have been standing had the lace been tied properly.

Perchy I salute you 😆 that made me laugh.

I got on one of the trains involved in the Clapham Junction Disaster. As I was coming back off leave I had all my bags with me and the train was absolutely jam packed. Lots of people tutting and whining about my backpack and I was in the mood to hit out so instead calmly got off the train to get the next one.

Perchy I salute you that made me laugh.

Try and get hit by a Nescafe sign next time. That would have been funnier. 🙂

Seriously, I was supposed to be in London and probably on the tube that the second 7/11 bomb went off on (Edgeware to Paddington).

I was extremely hungover and missed the National Express to London the evening before. Yes evening, I was that hungover!

Still think about it occasionally.

Bit lazy getting out of my bed in Reading and missed my usual London train – the express which crashed between Ealing Broadway and Paddington a few years back.

I was due to share a car journey with thegreatape and his boss tomorrow but can’t make it.

Coming home one night from a Club I gave this Girl a lift in my car, just a simple “I’m heading that way, jump in if you like” type conversation. She’d been hanging around the small group we had for about 3mths or so, thereby we all knew her and who she was.
Righty.. So just us two in the car, I pull outside her house to drop her off.. Whereby she lands on top of me and starts kissing and grabbing my Gentleman’s bits. I tried to bat her off, Obvs I’m married etc. etc. but she’s not interested and carries on then starts whispering in my ear “come upstairs, we can have some fun”
Well she frightened the life out of me and I jumped out of the car, whilst it was still running, and bolted a stone wall into a field whereby I landed on my arse. I hit behind some trees wondering when it would be safe to get back to the car.
All I heard was a front door slam shut, the car still running, so I took the plunge and ran to the car.. reversed quickly out into the road and down the lane quite quickly.

A week later and we’re in the pub, me and my mates, and she turns up.. Starts blabbing on about me running away and being some kinda Ghay, because like who would turn her offer down eh..

That was a very lucky escape indeed.

Got a branch in the jugular at the weekend that was fricken close

In my misspent youth I parked up outside local recreational substance suppliers house. Got out to knock on the door to notice it was open and the rubber seal around the edge hanging off. Being a bit dim I was still about to knock when a mysterious voice quietly echoed along the street saying “the coppers are in”.. looked around, couldn’t see who said it but finally put the broken door and the word of advise together. Jumped in the car, took off up the street and passed by two police cars coming the opposite way lights blazing!

Was a nervous wreck for a few days but never got a visit. I’m still grateful to whoever provided the quietly worded advice. My guardian angel on that day 🙂

That thankfully was the beginning of the end of my misspent youth

Bikebuoy, the thread is lucky escapes not missed opportunities?

Nah, I’m not like that.

S’pose for a lot of Lads it was, but after the outburst in the Pub I was kinda glad I ran, and ran fast.

Nice enough looking mind..

Yeah, didnt get bikebuoys one.
Lucky escapes eh?
Blatting along the road about 60 in my first car (Mk1 Sierra 1.8 L) heading home after work, know the road well, mate in passenger seat., going through a bit of a twisty bit, thought I saw a car in the distance, no problem, carry on. Get halfway round a left hand bend to see a car as far left as you could be, stopped and indicating to turn right, can see oncoming traffic, so slam the anchors on, wheels lock up (no ABS), take foot off brakes and squeezed between the turning car and the oncoming traffic. 😯
If they had been in the proper position for turning right this story probably would have had a VERY different ending.

On the bike this time, heading back to Petersfield after a day in QECP, you come out of the back of QECP and theres a bridleway that has a long sweeping right hander with a 10ft drop off to the left before diving under the railway and bringing you out at a duck pond in a village called Buriton.
Overcooked the speed heading round this bend and just managed to keep it together. Stopped having a bit of a panic and just wandered back up the path to see my tyre tracks approx 1″ from the edge of the drop. EEk.
I went a club in Paisley (nr Glasgow) with some female friends and ended up with this slapper bouncing up and down on my lap. Went to the bar to get some drinks to find her gone. Turned out she’d pissed herself in my absence and collapsed from alcohol poisoning before getting carted off in an Ambulance.

I tried crack once. I didn’t like it.

Was due to work on the power transformers In a London Bank, day before the job, it got cancelled. The planned night of the job (very close to where I was to park the van) the IRA blew up the Baltic Exchange.

More recently I was a decision away from being on the A27 at Shoreham about the time the plane crashed. Still makes me shudder!

I tried crack once. I didn’t like it.

I’ve heard it’s very moreish

In my first car – Citroen GSA – had had it a handful of years, so should have handled it better). Dropped mate (hi donald) of heading north, this was January I think. Was heading skiing the next day. Bit casual through some S bends before Cromdale, road a bit slitherly with snow / slush / ice. Whacked the front end into a low wall. Bugger. Was quite miffed. Got out to inspect damage. Not too bad, bumper and lights mostly. Looked over wall. 80 foot drop to old railway line and River Spey. Felt a wee bit wobbly after that..

Forgot about this one… Years ago coming back from the cinema with my then girlfriend. She complains that her contact is giving her grief and asks me to pull over in a layby.

Whilst she’s taking a look at her eye in the mirror, I thought I’d jump out and have a ciggy (never liked to smoke in the car).

Anyways, just as I was about to jump out of the car, she moaned a bit and asked if I could wait until I’d dropped her off. She never liked me smoking.

At the point I took my hand off the door handle a drunk in a MG midget, just missed by inches the side of my car and drove straight into a lorry trailer that was parked in front.

Proper mess, the car was bent in the middle so all the wheels wear off the floor and spinning around.

I reckon if I had of got out when I was going to there would be a pretty good chance he would have wiped me out.

Climbing this crane, going a long way up the ladder to the platform at the top, went to step onto the platform and realised there was no floor.

Setting up a top-rope on the top of Causey Quarry in Co. Durham I tripped over a root and plunged towards the edge, somehow managed to grab a root and ended up as far as my waist over the edge staring straight into the shocked eyes of my then GF about 80 feet below.

Given the job of driving three senior managers to a factory in the country I came round a corner to see a car coming fast straight at us, the driver staring at something in the field. In about two seconds I put the car up the verge and the other car shot past, still on our side of the road. Big sighs of relief all round.

New Year’s Eve 1980, friends of mine in Nairobi went to a dinner at the Norfolk hotel, which was Jewish-owned at that time. She asked hubby to turn back to the house to get a jumper and they set off again, arriving at the hotel just as a Palestinian bomb exploded in a bedroom right above the lobby where they would have been standing.

My dad always rode motorbikes and he said the worst person I could meet coming the other way was myself

One day I was out making progress and came across the inevitable slow moving queue of cars. Clear day, A-road I knew well. 6 or 7 cars in the queue.

My brain had plotted my overtake well before I got to the cars so I wouldn’t have to slow down in fact I could go just a bit faster maybe 80-85 and smoothly pass them no problem.

If this sounds reckless try and imagine riding an R1. It has the ability to teleport you almost anywhere on the road in the blink of an eye so there’s not like the big build-up will it/won’t it that you get in a car

So I went for the overtake. It wasn’t 100% clear cut but it would be supreme fricken bad luck if there was someone coming the other way and they would have to be doing at least 80 mph for it to be a problem.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

A bloke on a GSX-R Suzuki coming the other way has the same idea to pass the cars on his side of the road. Our closing speed must’ve been 160 mph. He sees me I see him. We’re both on the wrong side of the road with some cars heading towards us and a motorbike where we want to be. We both make the same move towards the cars we’re overtaking way closer than we’d like but there’s no choice. We pass within inches. I can feel the air separate and there’s a dull roar like distant thunder as we pass.

I complete my overtake and carry on as if nothing happened

another “in my yoof” story.(and not exactly my lucky escape)

popped over to a friends to have a little smoke, he happened to live on the fourth floor of an old shared house.
a few hours later my mate had crashed out while I was continued to sit on the floor watching tv.
all of a sudden my mate gets up and walks toward the open window and proceeds to step through it.
he was pretty much all the way through before I’d jumped up rushed to the window and grabbed hold of him by the scruff of his top and his jeans and pulled him back through. I manoeuvre him back onto his bed and at this point he groggily wakes up and asks me what the hell I was doing.
it turns out he was a regular sleep walker!

Had 16 rounds fired at me in a op in Belfast only one hit me (still in my arm) !
Crashed on a wet road had a X-ray for broken ribs confirmed two broken but found this next to my heart and right lung 😯 one week later they took it out got told it was not looking good
[url=https://flic.kr/p/hZbKpa]DSCF4172[1][/url] by Richard Munro, on Flickr

On the bit that continues after the NE switchbacks at Swinley there’s a low hanging branch after a small jump, i got the pointy end into my forehead and thought “****, half inch lower and that would have kebabed my eyeball”.

Next week riding that bit which continues after the NE switchbacks at Swinley there’s a low hanging branch after a small jump, i got the pointy end into my ckeek bone and thought “****, half inch higher and that would have kebabed my eyeball”.

Went back and snapped it off.

Burns Day, January 1990.

I was walking home from school, with my mate who was one of those gobby but straight under the pool table at the first sign of bother types.

We both walked down a narrow alleyway adjacent to houses on our right and a farm building on our left. The roof of a barn owned by the farm had been in disrepair for a number of weeks and the top corner of the roof had come away from the supporting framework. For a few days I’d heard it banging as it flapped in the wind.

My friend suddenly dropped to the ground, whimpering. I didn’t understand why he hit the deck and turned to ask him.

Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw movement but it was too late. I only had enough time to dip my head slightly and raise an arm to protect myself.

The section of roof that came away measured 6″ x 9″ and consisted of corrugated metal and supporting wooden joists. I felt it brush the back of my head as it came crashing over us. It missed my friend completely and hit the floor five feet away from where I was stood. Had I not dipped my head, it would have decapitated me as it was edge on by the time it passed over me.

I rode my bike down what looked like a track into a field of dark green crops – the barbed wire fence was dark grey wire and the posts were not very visible.

I hit the fence across my arms and cut the inside of both forearms open.

The wire came off the posts because it was stapled to the back. Had it been stapled to the front I dread to think what damage would have ensued.

Not particularly lucky (50% chance I guess), but it was a close one.

Talking of barbed wire fences, I can recall a night ride with a mate. He was ahead of me going quite quickly down a gravel path. Unfortunately the path had been washed out and there was an ever deepening rut which he ended up in, it threw him over the bars and somehow he went right through a barbed wire fence with nothing more than a torn sleeve.

Don’t travel with my family. My mum was booked on spanair on the gran canaria – Madrid route the day after the Madrid crash (same airline, same route, she flew the next day and said the atmosphere was a little sombre…), while my sister was in Madrid on the day of the bombings there and in Thailand on the day of the tsunami.

I applied for the Top Gear presenters job….phew, glad I didn’t get it. 😉