Over the years I have had two serious altercations with potholes. The first took place on a rainy day just before I retired, when I mistook a deep pothole for a puddle. I flew over the handlebars, hit my head on the tarmac and momentarily lost consciousness. A cyclist behind me stopped and called for an ambulance and I was taken to hospital to discover that, apart from various cuts and bruises on my face, my helmet was broken and my bicycle frame snapped. As for me, I was well enough to go home!

To my shame, in the emotional turmoil I argued with the passing cyclist that I did not need help and certainly did not want him to call an ambulance (he took no notice!). Worse still, I did not thank him, instead I simply waved him goodbye as I climbed into the ambulance. 

Sadly, this behaviour reflected my approach for most of my adult life. Even in my mid-to-late-seventies, I well remember that if I was on a train or bus and someone offered me a seat or help with a heavy load, I would politely decline, only sometimes thanking them. They were not to know that privately, the idea that someone thought I was in need of assistance actually hurt my pride. In my arrogance, help was the last thing I wanted.

How things have changed! This blog is about a second roadside altercation which happened in France a week ago. While no one was injured, the event had three important but very different outcomes; one was that the back tyre of our car needed replacing; the second was that the aches in my knees were made worse; the third was that I was able to make amends for my awful behaviour of almost twenty years earlier by warmly thanking the very generous stranger who ‘saved the day’.

It was early evening and Rohan and I were on our way to a restaurant. I turned the corner into a narrow street and suddenly there was a loud bang and a horrible jolt – my nearside back wheel had hit a kerbside pothole at the far end of which was a large, protruding rock. Shaken, we slowly drove to the restaurant car park to discover that the tyre was flat and the rim of the hub was dented (see illustration). The only way to make the car road-worthy was to change the wheel and Rohan and I decided that it was better to do this before our meal for which we had arrived early; afterwards it would be in the dark. 

For the sake of my knees I now try to avoid kneeling on the ground; however, this would be impossible. First, with the support of two very ‘flat’ car-cushions and help from Rohan I scrambled on the gravel on all fours deciding where to place the jack in order to lift the car and raise the punctured wheel off the ground. That done, and again on all-fours, I had to find and loosen the latch to the ‘cage’ that contained the spare wheel under the car boot. Finally I had to manoeuvre the wheel out of its cage and move it  round to the punctured wheel. 

Next came the classic wheel-change challenge – which I failed: I had to loosen the lug nuts (see illustration) so that I could remove the damaged and punctured wheel and replace it with the new spare. However, this last stage proved impossible; despite using all my strength, none of the lug nuts would turn – presumably they were rusted in!

At that point a car drove into a space just near us in the car park and I hoped against hope that the driver would see this forlorn old man and offer help – and so he did. It turned out that he was a bricklayer who, like us was going out with his wife. I gave him my spanner and without rolling up his sleeves he sat on his haunches and with great ease undid each of the oily, grimy lug nuts in turn and presented them directly to me from the spanner head. With the nuts removed he first slipped off the punctured wheel and then bolted in place our spare.

As he left, I thanked him (and his wife) repeatedly. I don’t usually hug strange men but in this case I would have made an exception. However, before a chance presented itself both he and his wife were gone. They were actually going to the same restaurant as us!

Interestingly, my responses to being helped have changed enormously over the last few years. Now 82, rarely a day goes by when I don’t accept and then thank someone for their kind and unsolicited help. So while thanking my bricklayer came as second nature, making amends for my failings of nearly twenty years ago gave me enormous pleasure.

The illustration is a photo of a car wheel with a punctured tyre. At the top, the rim is slightly indented, damage that is typical of what happens on hitting a pothole. Such an indent can break the seal around the inner tube which lets air leak out so causing a puncture. At the centre of the wheel there are five ‘lug nuts’. When these are tightened they attach the wheel to the hub on which the wheel turns. 

For helping me write this blog, I would like to thank Rohan, Vivien and a kind anonymous bricklayer.