It was the long hot summer of 1976 and I was four years old. On this particular day, my Uncle John (I didn’t know he was crazy back then) had let me play in his car, parked as it was by the kerb outside our house. With no key in the ignition I could sit there and pretend to drive for hours and the family knew just where I was.
I don’t know how long I’d been out there, but the kid who lived next door, Tommy McLaren, wandered over after spotting me in the car. Tommy was a few years older than me and he was really into cars – cars and The Fonz. He was a good kid – his parents were friends of the family by virtue of our houses sharing one big back garden. He always had time for me and I never felt threatened by him like I did with most of the other older boys around the estate.
He was cool too, I suppose, but then at that age I guess all older boys appeared to be cool because they had better toys and bigger bikes. That last part was a sore spot because, being four, my bike had a little red saddlebag and stabilisers. Back in those days the cool bike of choice was a Raleigh Chopper and they were much too big for me. Tommy had one of those – I was never really keen on them, but I could appreciate why they were cool – with a big red gear lever in the centre console and a fat rear tire, it looked like a man’s bike. His also had a CB ariel sticking out from the seat pillar – bikes didn’t come much cooler than that in the mid 70’s.
After I wrestled down the window, Tommy asked if he could play in the car with me. I was delighted, but the problem was he wanted to do the pretend driving. I told him that Uncle John had let me be in charge of the car and that although he could join me, he couldn’t drive it.
“If you let me drive, I’ll teach you how to ride your bike without stabilisers.” Tommy said.