A fairground life(cyprus adventure ch5)

Jan 2nd 1999

I was tired from the previous few days activity and didn’t wake up until about 11am. Today was going to be easy. All I had to do was take my lorry and drop it off at Stirling then pick up my fathers and bring it back. I had been on the phone to my brother as he had a transformer rectifier. Exactly what I needed to power my ride, He used it to power his ride too, but he had a spare dynamo in another lorry. It was fitted so he could drop the prop shaft (disconnect the back wheels from the gearbox) and use the lorry engine to drive the dynamo (this was the way all showmen used to get their power before having dedicated generators. The dynamo was usually driven by belts on a pulley drive attached to the out put shaft on a vehicle ‘s gearbox). He would use this setup while I had his transformer.We arranged to meet the next day to get the transformer out of his vehicle.
I jumped into the Atkinson confident it would make the journey to stirling. As I drove along the old Edinburgh rd the clutch began to slip worse. I thought if I could just get onto the motorway it would be fine because there would be no stop-start at lights etc. When I got to the roundabout at the m73 and tried to go up the slip onto the motorway the lorry couldn’t make it. I had no choice , I pulled over onto the hard shoulder. What do I do now I thought? As the lorry was driving on the flat ok, I decided to release the hand brake and roll down the slip road backwards and back onto the roundabout. Then I would drive around it and head back to the yard, about 2miles away. Sounds crazy I know , but that’s exactly what I did and how another vehicle never ran into the back of me is a mystery. I limped the lorry back to the yard again. I stopped the engine and got out. I had to get this to Stirling and I didn’t want the hassle of being towed. There was only one last thing that might work. I crawled under the vehicle to the clutch inspection hole and I wound the clutch ajustment right in, all the way. When I got in the cab the clutch pedal was solid, only about 1-2 inches of movement. I started the lorry up and engaged 1st gear. Crunch crunch we were off, I couldn’t dip the clutch at all, only enough to slip it slightly and when I changed gears I had to catch it on the revs and crash the gear change. surely this would get me there. Well it did, when I got to the slip the lorry flew up onto the motorway, but stopping was difficult, I had to drive thinking 2miles ahead in case I needed to stop. By the time I reached Stirling the clutch was almost gone again. I left the vehicle for my dad to take around to the mechanic he knew. I got into his lorry and set sail for Glasgow again. It was about 4pm and starting to get dark.
More tomorrow