The trials of a travelling band

                                                                   Alice

We get snow in England. Oh yes we do. Not, of course to the extent that our Colonial Friends get snow, but we do get snow.

The heaviest and nastiest snows cleverly time their arrival to coincide with long distance band bookings. At least, they did in the 1970s when our band transport was Alice. Alice was a retired ambulance and was generally reliable. Any defects could usually be repaired by one of the two items in our tool kit, namely, a roll of Duck tape and a can of WD40. If it moved and shouldn't, we used the tape. If it didn't move and should, then the WD40 made an appearance. Should either of those remedies be ineffective, then a bit of percussive maintenance usually solved the problem (hitting the offending component with a hammer) Our drummer, a person of small stature who enjoyed hitting things, held the opinion that if something could not be fixed with a hammer, it had to be an electrical fault.

Because I lived at that period in a rather remote village, I usually travelled to gigs in my own car, a rather new and nimble 2.4 Ltr turbo Toyota Supra. We would meet and then travel in convoy, conversing all the time on CB radio. (Eat your heart out CW McCall)

True to the Christmas carol, the snow lay deep and crisp and even. The roads had been partially cleared but were still treacherous. Alice was a little way behind me as we proceeded in a manner more carefully than was our custom. An expletive broke the radio silence.

“We're in trouble mate. Think the gearbox has gone. Can't get any gears.”

I stopped and reversed up to the ambulance. Investigation revealed first, that the old girl was incapable of moving under her own steam and second, that all of the band gear was in the back. It certainly would not go in my car and we still had over fifty miles to go. However, I had a powerful car and a tow rope. A tow rope somewhat shorter than I would have liked, but a tow rope nevertheless.

Cautiously, our conjoined convoy took to the Queen's Highway. The four wheel drive treated the icy road surface with a degree of contempt and it was only by looking in the rearview mirror that I was aware of the close proximity of Alice and the terrified face of Rob wrestling with the steering wheel. In retrospect, being pulled through snow at fifty miles per hour, unable to brake and very few feet behind another vehicle would rather tend to encourage involuntary bowel incidents.

Somehow, we made it to the venue to find the car park strangle empty. Our revered leader trudged off through the snow to find a phone box. No cell phones back in those dark days. Some time later, he returned to convey the glad tidings that the gig had been cancelled due to adverse weather conditions.

Just to complete the picture, a police car pulled into the car park. Using language more suited to a construction worker than to an officer of the law, the policeman said that he would appreciate being told why he should not give me a ticket for a totally illegal tow in very dangerous road conditions. Rob's response of “Well, that's rock and roll” did little to defuse the situation.

We got away with it and after we had given the cop a damned good listening to, we left Alice in the car park to await the good offices of a local repair shop.

Happily, Alice had suffered only a broken prop shaft and lived to fight another day.

As Rob said – That's Rock and Roll!