EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE: A fishy business

He was a strange bloke, old Keith Fish, but he assured me no-one who had been taught by him had yet failed a test.

I hadn’t really wanted to learn to drive. I couldn’t afford it and knew I wouldn’t be any good.

Mr Fish made it affordable though by turning up unannounced to give me extra lessons — “Just give me a pound for the petrol” — which would have been great if it was something I actually enjoyed like going to the pub but only served to increase the fear (justified) that I wasn’t progressing too well. Why else would you need extra lessons?

These drives round the Keighley area enabled him to “escape the wife” for a while, he told me and, as we passed the site of the first official Yorkshire Ripper attack, he nodded over and announced “I picked her up from there, you know”.

It transpired he was also an ambulance driver, which I take it was the reason he had come into contact with the unfortunate woman.

We would regularly stop a while, mid lesson, and listen to the football or talk about the cricket, usually seconds after he had given me a massive b*llocking for some minor mistake such as not spotting a crossroads or “just missing” some idiot using a zebra crossing.

He would ask why I was so nervous — ”Because you keep shouting at me” — and assure me there was no way I could fail.

There were many ways I could fail and, adding to the potential humiliation was the fact my brother had, undeservedly I’m sure, scraped through at the first attempt — he was probably one of those who got bought a car on his 17th birthday — as had my two cousins. All were younger than me and the pressure was on.

The test took place one Friday morning and, after a fairly uneventful driving lesson (number 31), I was taken to the starting point half-way up an extremely steep hill, inbetween two other cars.

I revved the hell out of the Fiesta to avoid falling into the vehicle behind, managed not to career into the one in front and was off, immediately turning left when instructed to go right. Not my fault, it transpired. The hapless examiner took the blame for a poorly delivered instruction. Needs to enunciate better, I noted.

Minutes later the car magically slowed down at a clearly just installed mini-roundabout I had never previously noticed, and I realised the dual control operated by the man with the clipboard might have played a part.

Surviving without any further difficulties, I was pleased to find no other cars parked on the hill, so pulled up within eight yards of the kerb and answered a few easy questions such as what does a sign with 30 written on it mean?

“I’m pleased to tell you that you have passed the examination,” the chap with the power to keep danger off the roads informed me and off I sauntered off certain in the knowledge that I had completed one of the most perfect circuits of Keighley ever.

When I got home the phone rang. It was the Fish man. “Told you there would be no problem,” he said. “I’ve still never had a failure. Never will.”

Years later my then partner would undergo ten tests in various locations across Devon before she passed — a feat that warranted a slot on the Westcountry TV news.

“You should have learned with The School of Fish, “ I said.