A Man Without Love

Accidents can and do happen "Chapter 1 of 18"

                                                                Chapter: One.

                                                 Accidents can and do happen.

          My story starts in the year 1976, on a cold and rainy August winter's day in Perth Western Australia, if there is indeed ever a real winter in the City of Perth. Bill Gump had turned up for work at Dave Johnson Motors, early as usual, always the first to arrive and the last to leave.

        A man who loved his job as a motor mechanic. Being not, just a commonplace every day mechanic, but a fully indentured British Rolls Royce trained mechanic, a man who was used to working on… Proper motor cars.

         With such esteemed qualifications, one would have thought to this man, working on lowly motor vehicles such as BMC Leyland and Datsun would have been a major comedown, presenting him with an image problem. Not so, this did not bother Bill Gump in the slightest, much the same as the winter weather outside that cold miserable wet day.

         You see, the Perth winter weather was in Bill's mind much better, and by his experience, far milder than the English summer he had recently left behind in England. That is why Bill was wearing his normal everyday work outfit of steel-capped boots, footy shorts, and tank top while diligently working on a brand new motor car, a Triumph Pi sedan.

         This beautiful car was just one week old, owned by a fussy local Doctor. The car reported to have an annoying and irritating engine flat spot while accelerating hard from a standstill.

         It was now seven-thirty in the morning, the workshop and sales people were just starting to arrive. They were all well wrapped-up against the bitter cold and lashing rain as they made a beeline straight for the coffee machine. As Peter stood in the coffee line, he glanced across at Bill and yelled out above the noise of the loud high-revving Triumph engine.

         'Morning Bill, looks like you're going down the beach again later, I see you've still got some work to do on your new Aussie sun-tan.'

         Then noticing the large bandage stuck with medi-tape to the left-hand-side of Bill's head, shouting above the engine racket again.

         'How's your sore head this morning? It looks like the bump has gone down a little... that's always a good sign.'

         Bill could not hear a sarcastic word Peter was saying because of the loud bellowing and revving of the Triumph engine.

         Peter was Bill's best friend, possibly his only friend. Sadly, Bill was a bit of a loner who was always trying hard to fit in. Please do not get me wrong as Bill was a very nice bloke, and would do anything for you, and that was most probably one of his main problems. Some people would take advantage of Bill's very generous and helpful nature, and Bill unfortunately mistook this interest in him for real friendship.

         The large bump on Bill's head was the result of a rather major motorcar incident that had taken place only a week earlier. As we all know, motoring "incidents" can be otherwise described as... motoring "accidents." In this particular unfortunate incident, it almost cost Bill his life. The full details of which are most certainly worth mentioning at this early point.

          Obviously, Bill's interest was in motor sport, and he was just starting to get-known around town. After all, Bill had an extensive involvement in many motor sporting events when he was in England. On this occasion, one of the local rally sporting clubs (to which Bill was a keen member) was short of a rally mapping crew. Now these are the guys who plan, and set out the clubs future rally events. As such, every point and detail of the proposed rally route accurately measured and carefully written down. These details will eventually become the official rally-event competitor map, the final route plan.