Up North for the weekend. Partly this was so that I could see the family (including a sibling who has briefly returned from the other side of the world), but also so that I could exorcise a long-standing demon.
I’ve now been embarrassed about not having a driving licence for over a decade. I took lessons when I was 17, like most people do, but I never really knew what I was doing. And so when I went off to university, where there was no real pressing need to be able to drive, and I had other things on my mind, I basically gave up. When I returned, almost seven years ago, I tried again. This time I actually managed to learn something, but I still managed to do something stupid in my test and fail. Then the test I rebooked in early January 2001 was cancelled due to icy roads, I moved to London to start working, and, with no real pressing need to be able to drive, and other things on my mind, I gave up. Again. Perhaps you can detect a theme developing here.
And so as time passed I gradually changed from being embarrassed about being in my early twenties and not having a licence to being embarrassed about being in my mid twenties and not having a licence, until finally I was embarrassed about being in my late twenties and not having a licence. Whenever the subject of driving would come up in polite conversation I would quietly try to change the subject or hope that I didn’t need to reveal to anyone who didn’t already know that I *gasp* couldn’t drive. I cringed when Dylan Moran’s character in Shaun of the Dead explained how he “didn’t really need to drive in London”. I endured the taunts of Sal’s Australian friends who laughed at me for my inadequacy–the concept of someone of my age not being able to drive being almost as ridiculous to them as it is to the car-obsessed Americans.
So earlier this year (with only a slight push from a girlfriend fed up with doing all the driving whenever we hire a car on holiday) I resolved to do something about it. And despite all the pain and anxiety I’ve associated with the subject of driving for so many years, it turned out to be remarkably straightforward: I took my theory test back in July, which proved to be as stupidly easy as it was the first time (“An old lady is crossing the road in front of you. Do you: a) Speed up, rev your engine and try to take her out, Grand Theft Auto-style; b) Beep your horn, swear at her and gesture for her to get off the road; or c) slow down and wait for her to cross“). After that, it was just a matter of booking in a few refresher lessons and a test, which just happened to be available on a Saturday afternoon in my home town–where I could use my mum’s car and the roads are nice and quiet–on the weekend when I was planning to go home anyway. It was almost like it was meant to be.
By the time I turned back into the test centre at the end of the test, aware that the examiner hadn’t made many marks on his little exam sheet (and that I hadn’t done anything really stupid this time) I was feeling fairly confident, but it was still a shock to hear him say the fateful words “I’m pleased to tell you that you’ve passed”. He might have said these words with no emotion whatsoever, conveying the sense that he was in fact in no way pleased to have unleashed another driver onto the roads, but he said them nonetheless. And I have a piece of paper to prove it.
So there you go. Something that has been such a big deal for me for so long suddenly isn’t. Feels like a bit of an anticlimax really.