It’s often difficult to decide how to write about something that’s happened – in prose or poetry, a factual narrative or a distillation of essences. In this event I’ve opted for both, partly because when introducing the poem at a reading, I tell the story and partly because it’s a good story in its own right. It still makes me smile as it’s not the only time I’ve had to give a man a lesson on towing a vehicle out of trouble, only this time it was with a little Berlingo and not the usual Landrover. 

It was Sunday morning and I was on the mountain road on my way back from a gig the night before in north Wales; Zion Train if I remember rightly and I’d slept in the car. I was flagged down by a middle-aged born-again biker who had stopped to take a photo, had pulled up on a soft verge and had let his heavy, borrowed Harley slide off the edge and get caught in the sheep wire. He looked aghast when I got out of my car: small, female, hung over, clearly older than him and still in my glad rags after a night on the razz. 

“My bike slid into the fence – is there any way you can help pull it out?”

Hmmmm… I had a look and it was well stuck in a rut with the handlebars caught in the wires. 

“I’ll see what I’ve got.”

Unfortunately I didn’t have a tow rope with me, but did find a small, tatty ratchet strap under a seat that I thought would do. I went to attach it to the back of his bike.

“No, not that way. I want to go out forwards, not backwards.”

Oh god, another one of those!

“Look, the only way you’re coming out is the way you went in. Your front wheel is jammed against the fence sideways in a ditch and the handlebars are tangled in the wire. Trust me on this; you need to come out backwards, not forwards which will only dig you deeper in, so if you deal with the bike I’ll tow you slowly with the car.”

He wouldn’t believe me and tried to argue the toss but I wouldn’t give in and he realised that, given no other vehicle had passed us, I was his only option. I hooked him on, started the car and towed the bike out backwards onto the road in a single, fluid movement. 

He did have the grace to look pretty sheepish and thanked me profusely before going on his way – forwards. 

I learned later that Harleys usually have a reverse gear, so he may not even have needed me at all. Hey ho!