Working the late shift on the phone-in programme meant I often ended up driving home between 2 and 3 in the morning. A journey that took up to an hour during the daytime; I could do it in under half an hour when my bed was beckoning, if I put my foot down.
Of course, putting my foot down too much meant I occasionally got stopped by the boys in blue, although luckily they usually let me off with a slap on the wrist once I explained why I was out at that time and they ascertained I wasn't a boozed-up boy-racer.
One time though, things got a little more serious...
I was about five miles from home, driving not too fast, but approaching some traffic lights just as they were turning to red. At any other time of day, I'd have stopped... I'm not really an amber gambler... but the roads were deserted and I just wanted to hit the sack. So I drove through just as they changed to red. I kept on my way, but about thirty seconds later, a car appeared seemingly from nowhere, driving very fast and very close behind me. I checked the mirror. It wasn't a police car. I slowed to let them past but they stuck to my bumper. So I put my foot down again.
As fast as I went (in my battered up Ford Fiesta), they stuck to my tail. I was starting to get worried. Some kind of road rage psycho? A psychotic criminal intent on ramming me to claim the insurance... or mug me and steal my Creedence tapes? All kinds of things went through my head. Would I ever make it home alive?
Luckily, up ahead the road forked... and I knew for a fact that very few people took the fork I did as it only really led to my parent's old farmhouse. So when I took that fork and the car behind kept on following... that's when I really panicked, and floored it.
I screeched round the dirt track that led to my dad's garage/shed and got out of the car, prepared to make a run for it and hope I could beat my pursuers to the house. The other car screeched to a halt behind me and its door flew open.
"It's all right - don't panic - police!"
Don't panic? I'd just been doing 90 (well, maybe 75... battered up Ford Fiesta, remember) while being chased by an unmarked police car. I was going down.
But the copper wasn't interested in me right at that moment. No, he was talking into his radio.
"It's OK, it's OK... false alarm. Call off the air support. Call off the helicopter!"
He would later explain his mistake. On coming up behind me, he'd seen my number plate. My car was an F reg, but there was mud on the number plate so the F looked like a P. Fake plates, he told me, he'd though they were fake plates. Then when I put my foot down... he was certain I was a master criminal.
He apologised and drove off, seemingly embarrassed over making such a mountain out of what might literally have been a little bit of mole hill stuck to my number plate.
This is a true story, and that is exactly how it all ended. But I've told it a few times over the years, and a couple of people have questioned it. Not my version of event, but the "police man's". They've asked me why a plain clothes copper in an unmarked car was essentially doing traffic duty. They've even suggested that it was all some huge 3 a.m. practical joke and that he wasn't the fuzz at all... but personally, I find that a lot more frightening.
Still. I never ran a red light again, and I kept my number plate spotless.
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