Accidental thigh-brush, your honour

9.30am Tuesday 12/4/88

Barrie's Driving School. With Geoff. Top instructor. Got to be. He told me so.

'Mornin', lovely. Pop yourself down here then'. Pat pat.

'Oh, l better reeemember. Withdraw the pawwww, ha ha. Easy tiger', he says, checking himself in the wing mirror.

Try and fully concentrate. Not easy when the percentage is seventy/thirty smut.

'Ha ha. Ooooooh. Now you got me started. Right. Now. Key aaaaaawl the way in, winkety wink'.

'Give that hand job, l mean hand break a good throbbing and off we go. Bet you're tired after seeing your boyfriend but l'll keep you awake. Nudge Nudge'.

You get it?

Do you actually get that this, THIS, is my experience of driving lessons, alone in a space where all the power lies within this cretin. For the longest of time, it seems.

At sixty six years old, l still feel ashamed l do not drive. Occasionally some random will ask why.

'Erm. I. I just stopped a while back', stuttering, the question triggering memories of being trapped inside my precious red mini cooper with the slimiest, pot-bellied, halitosis-ridden male specimen Barrie's had available for my eleven pounds an hour lessons.

You get it.

And l wonder how many other women-of-a-certain-age can't drive due to the Geoffs back in those days.

These days.

(Geo)ffs

How very apt, don't you agree?