All in a night's work!

In December 1971, I was a student working over the Christmas holidays plucking turkeys and chickens to fund the purchase of an Austin Mini van. The roads were covered with several inches of snow - no blacktop in sight.

I was asked to undertake an evening delivery of turkeys to a butcher in Tomintoul - the birds were loaded into a Morris Minor van and was I was told that as there was a hole in the side of the fuel tank, the van couldn't carry much fuel.

A quick glance around the van confirmed that the rear tyres were pretty well bald but with the bravado of youth I set off confidently. These were the days when there was no minimum tread depth required and the MOT test didn't cover things like wipers, brake lights and structural areas so a holed fuel tank was probably overlooked!

The delivery was completed without incident and the return journey started with the needle on the petrol gauge indicating only a little above empty and by now there was no petrol station in the village open.

I got as far as the climb out of Bridge of Brown when the van lost traction, so reversed slowly down the hill to a point where I felt I could restart the climb. Despite being very gentle on the throttle and staying in as high a gear as I could, the van again lost traction around the same place and the fuel gauge was now registering empty. There was no other traffic on the road and no lights showing in any of the buildings so it was quite clear that I had to get up the hill.

Once more, I reversed down the hill and from the restart, built up as much speed as I could and this time the van made it to the top of the climb which was a huge relief as I could coast much of the way back to Grantown from there if need be.

We made it home without further incident though with two important lessons learned -ensure you've plenty tread on your traction tyres and keep your tank topped up over winter months. What if?