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BANG! SPLAT! GOOD NIGHT!

WOLF & LYNNE

Sunday ... May 3rd ... 1992 ... Somewhere in Derbyshire ... Two Minutes To Midnight (cue Iron Maiden) ... Your Mission ... Should You Choose To Accept It ... Is To Get Home In One Friggin' Piece ... This Yamaha Will Self-Destruct In 5 Seconds 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... KABOOOOOOOOOM!

Well, actually it was more BANG! SPLAT! GOOD NIGHT!

As for the bike self-destructing; not quite.

The night was dark, it usually is, but not half as dark as when some stoooooopid bint in a Mini, decided to turn our lights out for us. There we were, me an' Lynne [the missus], tootling home on the trusty old Virago after a ride around the Derbyshire countryside, when it happened.

The roads were more or less deserted, apart from two or three cars that had followed us away from the set of traffic lights we had just gone through; not on red I hasten to add. Approaching the local garage on our left, I noticed a small car coming towards us, which eventually indicated right to turn into said garage; the car came to a halt and waited for its chance to turn across our path. As we drew level with the garage, the car was still waiting patiently in the middle of the road, still ready to turn right, and seeing as we were the only other vehicle close to the car, we assumed it was waiting for us to pass by.

We were nearly "on top" of the car, when suddenly, and with absolutely no logical reason I can think of, the driver "floored" the accelerator and tried to turn into the garage. I say tried, as the car never made it, due entirely to being rammed amidships by us. It happened so fast, and the car was so close ... we just had nowhere to go. With Lynne's cries of "OH SHIT!" ringing in my ears, and the terrified face of the car passenger imprinted on my mind, I just hit every lever, pedal and switch available, and hung on for grim death.

Coming round, laid on my back in the road, and out-shaking Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, was my next conscious sensation.

Once I'd figured out what had happened, where I was, and that I really hadn't just done ten rounds with Lennox Lewis, my first rational thought was for Lynne. I shouted out to her, and she immediately replied that she was OK. That OK in fact that she had been sorting out in her own mind, as to who was going to go to our house to feed our cats, Spud & Wid, and walk Bandit, our totally deranged [aren't they all?] Border Collie dog. My next move was to think it would be an extremely good idea to try and get up ... wrong decision.

Fer f*ck's sake ... that hurt!

Remember those cars I mentioned, that followed us away from the traffic lights? Well, an occupant of one of those cars was hovering over me, and attempting to hold me down as I struggled to get up; it turned out that this bloke was a local doctor, who was returning from an evening out with a car-full of other doctors and dentists ... fate, huh? Anyway, he managed to get me to lie down again, but not before I caught sight of my femur (thigh bone), poking through my blood-soaked jeans, and resembling a portion of spare ribs from a Chinese takeaway; I decided that laying still was a good thing to do at this point in time.

What followed all this was the usual flurry of police, ambulances, gas & air, saline drips, lots of screaming "Ooh, my bloody leg", on both our parts, and the inevitable ride to the local hospital. The next thing I personally remember was waking up in the Intensive Care Unit three days later, and immediately demanding that the nurses should put the TV on, because I was missing the second part of a Star Trek episode I had been watching the week previous! Well, it *was* the Borg! OK, I'm a saddo, what of it?

Now this is where this write-up gets very concise, as you'd still be reading it next year if I went into detail about every hospital we'd been in since the "accident", every operation, the successes, the failures, the good days, the bad days etc., etc., and I won't even send you to sleep by describing our injuries in minute and gory detail. What I will do, is tell you that Lynne has ended up with a whole load of scarring to her left leg, due mainly to major plastic and reconstructive surgery, including the fitting of several Fixator-Ilizarov hybrid frames, and she also has to manage with a painful left knee that doesn't bend too well; walking any distance is right out. What about me? Well, after seven and half years of trying everything in the book to get the femur in my left leg to heal, including having several Fixator-Ilizarov hybrid frames fitted myself, I finally gave in to the increasingly inevitable, and made the most gut-wrenching and frightening decision I've ever had to make in my life; I am now an above-knee amputee.

Any road up, to cut an even longer "Getting our lives back" story very short indeed, here we are in 2001, I'm the proud owner of a Trikeshop UK Suzuki 1500 LC Intruder trike, I'm the Club Liaison & Internet Officer for the N.A.B.D., I'm also the Derbyshire rep for the Road Bouncers MCC, and last but not least in my bikin' CV, I'm the President of the Alien Nation, which is a nation-wide club designed principally for disabled riders. Back with a vengeance, you might say.

Onto the trike, then. Thank f*ck fer that I hear you cry.

After being p*ssed about by a certain V8 trike builder, who shall remain nameless, I finally bit the bullet, and my chequebook, and contacted Hadyn at the Trikeshop UK. Now, at this point in time, June 2000, I still wasn't very mobile as regards getting about on my false leg, and my over all fitness was none existent, so travelling up and down to Cardiff to visit Hadyn was well out of the question. So, all trike plans were drawn up and discussed either by phone, or me sending extremely dodgy drawings to Hadyn by e-mail; no, not *that* type of dodgy drawing. Still, it obviously worked, and with a hell of a lot of mutual trust between us having never actually met at that point in time, we came up with what you see before you.

September 2000; it arrives. Hadyn had gone off sunning himself abroad, so it was left to Kurt to deliver the trike. As he unloaded it from the trailer, both Lynne and myself just sat there awe struck, at the vision in silver and black that was about to be wheeled down our drive. Then, Kurt fired it up. WOOOO ... F*CKIN' ... WHOOOO! I bet every curtain in our road twitched in sheer terror. Lynne and I just grinned at each other inanely. We were finally back, and the world was gonna f*ckin' know about it.

Am I pleased with the end result? You bet I bloody am! The workmanship can't be faulted, the ride is excellent, and it looks a million dollars. OK, I ended up spending quite a lot more than I'd originally budgeted for, but what the Hell? What price do you put on sheer quality and immense satisfaction? I still maintain to this day, that it's still the best looking trike that the Trikeshop UK have ever built, but I'm sure Hadyn would argue differently.