This is the opposite. TVY (Tivvy) has been dying for years. Each MOT throws up more questions. The mechanic sucks his cheeks in and makes that face that says, 'you're flogging a dead horse mate'. But each time we patch her up and enjoy another year of travel and so it goes. This time, I could see in his eyes that the ghost was up. And I called it. I had to.
'Make sure you write about the band' I heard myself saying to myself. And I will. There is a point to this. TVY has served 'The Band' as much as anyone. She was around at the start; ten years ago our first gigs were served out of her boot. Sam, Shelley and I would pile our instruments in and drive off to play for anyone that would have us. And often for no money. She's seen it all; the unglamorous beginnings; the hope and despair that every new band goes through. She'd be the one to carry us; our gear neatly stacked on the journey up, and thrown in any which way on the return. The load she bore increased as the years went on and we collected more and more instruments. She's had 3 people, a PA system, two amps, two guitars, a keyboard, mandolin, violin, cajon, lead bag, guitar stands, mic stands, a box of CD's, overnight bags, a tent, bedding, all of the piano player's velvet jackets and bags of food and other essential non-essentials. And we've slept in her on top of that, when the rain made camping too miserable to bear, we sat up and dozed in her seats, cushions pressed against the windows. Sometime we'd have so much stuff the piano player would literally be buried in the back. And even the guitar player didn't get off that lightly in the front; he once did a 700 mile round trip to Broadstairs Folk Festival with his amplifier on his lap. We were flagged by the police that time; no reverse light, "Oh really officer, I never knew, I'll go and fix that as soon as I get home!". And I did but it broke again soon after and we didn't bother again after that, even when we were stopped a second time. The last 7 years she's hasn't had them.
I bought her from my great aunt when she could no longer drive. I never liked her boyish blue but she was a good car and came with a sizeable family discount. But it was her economics that were invaluable. She could do Penzance to London and back for a little over £60 if you drove right, that's basically 100 miles for a tenner. That's why we kept on using her, kept piling her up and burying ourselves inside her, to save on money. In reality it was that that was killing her. Slowly. The weight and the miles. And she did a lot of them; I must have done the Penzance to Bristol route 200 times, literally. Twice a month for 8 years. It add's up. She was a Pasty Connection car from the word go and the amount of geeks, freaks and vagabonds she's carried would make a blog entry on its own. One of them even became my partner and the mother of my children. As a working actor she's toured the country with me, done time in Leeds, Leicester, London, and I promise I go to other places that don't begin with L but at the minute I can't think of one. She's been bashed around a bit too; got a wonky bonnet when a jeep reversed into her. Then I backed her into a ditch one night trying to navigate someone's driveway with - you guessed it - no reverse lights. They had to use a crane to get her out. In later years her cupped seats played havoc with my back and caused a growing amount of seat braces to come onboard. Her back doors got stiff and one snapped off during the routine struggle to open it. The bumper fell off and was glued back on. I've had a replacement number plate. A couple of wing mirrors. Two new exhausts. A new clutch. A new something. A new other thing.
As the band grew and moved into a succession of broken van's to take us further into Europe, was she sparred? Far from it, she became a family car; carrying three kids and all they come with; piled high with a different weight. Prams and car seats and bags of clothes and dirty nappies and discarded food, and half the sand from the beach. Bikes and trikes and paper maché rockets, my partner's sewing machine lived in there for months, an angle poised lamp, a bag of tools and that time we didn't have a washing machine and went to the laundrette and left the clothes in the car. She's seen arguments; enough of those; angry bursts and broken mirrors, she's even been vacated while moving on the way home from Norfolk. She's seen laughter; lots of that, all the jokes and jibes from life in a band and we laugh a lot; sometimes till our faces ache. She's seen tears; I had to pull over once on the way back from Glastonbury, I couldn't see the road, it was like looking through a waterfall. She's seen fear; a few wrong turns took me down a wooded track to an unsavoury place late at night. I made a very swift exit.
We saved her from the scrap two years ago; I piled more money into her, knowing I'd get it back on the milage. She scraped through the MOT last year, by the skin of her teeth, or rather the thread of her tyres. I had to get a new thingamajig, it was expensive. Driving to London and back in a day was cheaper yes, but it was bloody tiring, so I started taking the train more, using the time better, to do admin or write blogs for you guys. But even less miles didn't save her. His cheeks sucked in and he made that face that said 'you're flogging a dead horse mate'.
It's hard to say goodbye to a car..
Last time I wrote a poem. The words just fell out. That car was stolen from me. This one I am letting go of; it's like taking your pet dog to the vet and having her put down. "It's just a car mate!" some people say, but you can attach feeling to anything, even though it's not alive. That car has seen more of me than some of my closest friends. We've shared every emotion under the sun; I even spent a New Year's Eve inside her; pulled over on the M6 and watching the fireworks spring up in all the different towns.
There's no poem this time. Just a collection of words to you fine folk, who keep growing by the way. Not your waistbands, your numbers. This year we've had a big upsurge in readers and we haven't even played a gig. Just spurted out memories of lockdown and cars.
Saying goodbye is hard. I'm actually pretty sad about this one, watching her go to scrap, stripped for parts, crushed into a cube. It's a brutal ending, but with the faint promise of recycling, she could come back as a hospital trolley or a can of beer. Thank you TVY. And if you're reading this raise a glass; to a crucial cog in The Odd Folk machine. And yes she's played second fiddle to the Renault 4, in terms of fame and fortune certainly, but functionality, there's no contest. She's a workhorse and a warrior. Old reliable. One of a kind. Rest in peace old girl.
