大象传媒

The Leicester road out of Lutterworth was never a busy road in 1940 - The local milk float dispensing gills to quarts of milk dredged from a silver churn with a long handled dipper. The odd lone Land Army girl toing or froing to work. The smartly dressed itinerant (they never seemed to looked like tramps) moving on to his next casual labour job, or coming in to stop off at the Casual Hostel up by the Sec Mod for a nights BnB. Cars were very seldom seen on the Leicester road, Midland Reds I remember going to Rugby, but from in town going in the opposite direction, not through and past us. I don鈥檛 even remember one of those steel wheeled tractors out our way.

But convoys were another thing. Convoys drove at a snails pace, convoys of all manner of men and machines, but the Canadian convoy was a hoot. This Canadian convoy - their battledress was a smooth greenish shade, expensive looking, and well fitted, rather than that brownish horse hair with that fits where it touches look that our lads wore - was quietly, serenely, slowly with due decorum - no shouting out to the passing lads 鈥渉ave you got a big sister?鈥� or some such at less than walking pace. No, just a normal unassuming standard convoy. Then the clowns rode by, well at least one of them was a clown. Two outriders with round crash helmets and belts that widened to 6 or 7 inches in the small of the back. Mounted on motorcycles with wide handlebars, big panniers and wide comfortable armchairs for seats, unlike our parsimonious 鈥淓nfields鈥� with their utilitarian impoverished lack of largess.

And what clowns they were. Going line astern into Lutterworth the lead clown makes a very very slow left hand turn that will enable him to turn in the width of the road available to him so that he can go back to the front of the convoy. Echelon 2 - no doubt a very bright lad as a rule, but maybe thinking of the girl he left behind him on the wide open wheat spaces of middle Canada - kept to a straight but oblique line that enabled him to hit the lead rider amidships in the centre of the road thus bringing them both down at less than walking pace with lots of slithery slythy metal sounds and sparks, after which both stood up, unhurt, whereupon Lead 1 looked at Echelon 2 in utter silence. Well what can you say - !!?@*%**@ - wouldn鈥檛 do justice to a Barnum and Bailey like that.

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