Due to failing eyesight, my mum stopped driving more than twenty years ago. However, the stories about when she was a driver are the stuff of family legend.
Obviously, there's the time she drove the wrong way down a one way street.
And the time she almost drove me and my grandma (her mum) off a cliff. (They were arguing about which way to go. I was in the backseat, clinging on for deer life.)
Del Amitri - Driving With The Brakes On
And the time she drove over an open manhole from which a workman's head had been protruding a few seconds earlier. (Good job he ducked.)
Perhaps most famous of all is the time that she stalled in the middle of roadworks and the policeman who was directing traffic got down on his knees in front of her car and put his hands together in prayer, begging her to move.
Shakin' Stevens - She Drives Me Crazy
We remember all these stories with good humour, even though our lives may have been at risk on one or more occasion... let's face it, none of us were wearing safety belts back then.
What it's easy to forget though, is how much mum (and dad) drove me around, wherever I wanted to go, when I was a kid. Music lessons, band practice, comic marts in Leeds... we were reminiscing about the latter recently, about the time my mate Liam (who was notoriously car-sick) came with us, and when Liam started looking a bit queasy, Mum just handed him a paper bag and said, "do it in there". Or the time she went to pay for parking and the ticket machine started spitting out money. She shared it out between the two of us and we bought a few extra comics that day.
Carter U.S.M. - The Young Offender's Mum
Then, when I started working in radio, Mum would get up early on a Saturday morning to drive me to Bradford in time for the 9am show I worked on... at least until I'd passed my driving test, which wasn't until I was 18, so she must have done it every Saturday for at least two years. One Saturday, I had a piano exam at the same time. I'd told the presenter I was working with that I was going to be half an hour late, but he'd forgotten, and in the pre-mobile phone era, there was no way of reminding him. Driving in, listening to the radio, we kept hearing him saying, "Where's Rol this morning? I've got nobody to answer my phones." Mum remembered that when she finally dropped me off and I sprinted into the studio, the first link she heard on her way home was, "Oh look, Rol's arrived... still wearing his pyjamas."
Justin Townes Earle - Call Ya Momma
These days, when I spent many of my weeknights and weekends ferrying Sam to a variety of sporting activities and pre-teen social engagements, I like to remind myself that I'm paying it forwards. Thanks, Mum.
The All Seeing I & Jarvis Cocker - Drive Safely Darlin'
There's an obvious song to close today, but one that was over-played to the point that most people are sick to the back teeth of it. Never fear - Aimee Mann to the rescue!
