Dear J
One of the steepest learning curves of my driving life was learned in reverse last Thursday, when we picked up our prize of a Princess Nova caravan from the Worcester White Stuff store.
Decked out in brand new clobber (for the attendant photo shoot), I listened as the ever-industrious Mick, who had been towing the Princess from Cornwall to Scotland and back all summer, gave me the skinny on how to tow a caravan.
“Have you ever towed a caravan before?”
“Urr, no.”
“Have you ever towed anything before?”
“Umm…”
He smiled, picked the thinnest roll-up in the world from between his lips, and exhaled smoke.
“It’s a piece of cake,” he said.
Turns out it’s a fairly large piece of sherry trifle cheesecake with whipped cream and a cherry on top.
When your speed limit’s 70, go at 60; when it’s 60, go at 50. If you’re on the motorway and the van starts to veer, then speed up, don’t slow down, or it’ll jack-knife and you’ll all be dead (or something).
To connect it to the back of the car, reverse the car close, manhandle the caravan into place, lift that and crank that, then when it’s married, drop that. Then hoist that, and clip the emergency braking wire in place. Your caravan’s on. Then you can connect your two plug things, black-to-black and grey-to-grey — don’t get it wrong or you’ll blow the lot — and check your car lights are working through the caravan.
I nodded throughout this explanation, employing what I like to describe as my bullshit nod, which has seen me through university and many jobs besides. I arched my eyebrow through how to connect the wheel clamp and the hitchlock, and I hmmed and ahhed about how the gas bottle is connected.
Pulling away after the media circus (of which more anon) I was relieved and alarmed to find the Princess dutifully following. It was pissing it down, so I drove pretty slowly, and pulled some wiiiide turns. Jols and I winced and groaned as the satellite navigation dragged us over every speed hump in Kidderminster, and it was really only after this trial that we started to engage with the fact that we had nowhere to go.
The place where we had arranged to stow the Princess had long since shut for the day, and so Jols had made some enquiries at local caravan parks as to whether we could keep the Princess there for a night. One such park had “plenty of space”, but after we’d answered a few questions (“we don’t know exactly how long the caravan is”, “we won’t be staying in it overnight”), they suddenly found that they “didn’t have any space”.
Not only are caravan owners lepers to society, it seems that clueless competition-winning caravan owners are lepers-with-swine-flu to the lepers.
The day was saved (and not for the first time) by deeply generous and tolerant pals Lou and Mike, who lent us their driveway for the night, and kept a cheery outlook even after seeing the Princess.
Arrival at Lou and Mike’s driveway brought roll-up-touting-Mick’s final bit of advice back to me:
“The only real problem is reversing.”
As a queue of traffic began to form beside me, I struggled to recall:
“See, if you want it to go left, you turn right as you reverse. But not too hard, or it’ll jack-knife. You have to turn right, and then turn left to follow it on the arc. You’ll get the hang of it.”
That, my old son, is pressure parking.
jx
Be a man: tow a caravan
Dear J
One of the steepest learning curves of my driving life was learned in reverse last Thursday, when we picked up our prize of a Princess Nova caravan from the Worcester White Stuff store.
Decked out in brand new clobber (for the attendant photo shoot), I listened as the ever-industrious Mick, who had been towing the Princess from Cornwall to Scotland and back all summer, gave me the skinny on how to tow a caravan.
“Have you ever towed a caravan before?”
“Urr, no.”
“Have you ever towed anything before?”
“Umm…”
He smiled, picked the thinnest roll-up in the world from between his lips, and exhaled smoke.
“It’s a piece of cake,” he said.
Turns out it’s a fairly large piece of sherry trifle cheesecake with whipped cream and a cherry on top.
When your speed limit’s 70, go at 60; when it’s 60, go at 50. If you’re on the motorway and the van starts to veer, then speed up, don’t slow down, or it’ll jack-knife and you’ll all be dead (or something).
To connect it to the back of the car, reverse the car close, manhandle the caravan into place, lift that and crank that, then when it’s married, drop that. Then hoist that, and clip the emergency braking wire in place. Your caravan’s on. Then you can connect your two plug things, black-to-black and grey-to-grey — don’t get it wrong or you’ll blow the lot — and check your car lights are working through the caravan.
I nodded throughout this explanation, employing what I like to describe as my bullshit nod, which has seen me through university and many jobs besides. I arched my eyebrow through how to connect the wheel clamp and the hitchlock, and I hmmed and ahhed about how the gas bottle is connected.
Pulling away after the media circus (of which more anon) I was relieved and alarmed to find the Princess dutifully following. It was pissing it down, so I drove pretty slowly, and pulled some wiiiide turns. Jols and I winced and groaned as the satellite navigation dragged us over every speed hump in Kidderminster, and it was really only after this trial that we started to engage with the fact that we had nowhere to go.
The place where we had arranged to stow the Princess had long since shut for the day, and so Jols had made some enquiries at local caravan parks as to whether we could keep the Princess there for a night. One such park had “plenty of space”, but after we’d answered a few questions (“we don’t know exactly how long the caravan is”, “we won’t be staying in it overnight”), they suddenly found that they “didn’t have any space”.
Not only are caravan owners lepers to society, it seems that clueless competition-winning caravan owners are lepers-with-swine-flu to the lepers.
The day was saved (and not for the first time) by deeply generous and tolerant pals Lou and Mike, who lent us their driveway for the night, and kept a cheery outlook even after seeing the Princess.
Arrival at Lou and Mike’s driveway brought roll-up-touting-Mick’s final bit of advice back to me:
“The only real problem is reversing.”
As a queue of traffic began to form beside me, I struggled to recall:
“See, if you want it to go left, you turn right as you reverse. But not too hard, or it’ll jack-knife. You have to turn right, and then turn left to follow it on the arc. You’ll get the hang of it.”
That, my old son, is pressure parking.
jx