John Linton
are NOT a thing of the past!
Annette and I have continued our bucolic holiday in rural England but have now returned from the far West Country to the wealthier and more manicured habitat of the nouveaux riche in West Berkshire which among other extravagances, is the home of the English race horse training major establishments which means that the combined value of the horses in this valley are far in excess of the value of the johnny come latelys who have bought up the magnificent residences in this valley. To start our day we drove out to see the Uffington White Horse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse
and spent a pleasant hour or so climbing the hills and looking at it from the various recommended viewing angles before returning to our car to drive on to our planned destination for the day......but we were subjected to an highly unpleasant and, in its way, quite frightening incident from which we were lucky/cautious enough to emerge unscathed.
Anyone who has driven on English rural B roads would know that they are very narrow - often only wide enough for one car with recesses every so often to allow two vehicles traveling in opposite directions to pass each other by one vehicle pulling off the road and stopping. Shortly after we left the White Horse site we turned a corner and were confronted some 30 meters away with a tall, emaciated and very pale male with his arms and legs wide spread lurching, zombie like, towards us. It was impossible to pass him and it was only just possible to stop before actually colliding with him...so I jammed on the brakes....and, obviously brought the car to a halt. As the figure in front of us leaned his arms on the car bonnet and we were able to see in detail his wide eyed appearance, dilated pupils and the multiple piercings to his lips and nose it instantly became apparent that this was a big, big mistake.
For a few moments nothing happened. Then he shouted at us to "call the police"....still blocking any movement forward of the car by leaning on the bonnet. Annette opened her passenger side window 2 or 3 centimeters and asked him what was wrong while I felt my pulse racing as I realised this was not some unfortunate victim of some sort of accident. He again yelled to call the police and started to move towards Annette's side of the car as if he was trying to make himself heard better and began waving his arms around. The car was still in gear and I had my foot on the accelerator and determined to gun the engine the moment that he was clear of the bonnet.
With amazing speed he suddenly moved and grabbed the door handle on Annette's side as I, just too late, accelerated the car which being a diesel takes a second or so to actually respond to a flattened accelerator which gave the apparition time to try and open the door handle and realising it was locked (courtesy of the auto door lock feature standard with this model of an A4) began to rapidly smash his fist into the passenger side window which (courtesy of German glass manufacturing standards) didn't break. Annette had the reflexes and presence of mind to have closed the window before he could reach it. By now the car was doing well over 20 kms an hour and now rapidly accelerating as its 2.7 litre turbo kicked in and the assailant was still clinging to the door handle and the wing mirror screaming incoherent words as he was dragged along by his grip on the passenger side door handle. Finally he let go and, fortunately, fell clear of the cars rear wheels and Annette said that he quickly got up as if completely uninjured as we sped away round the next corner.
Annette called the police and described the incident and the assailant and they said they would send a car to investigate and we sped as fast as we could away from the incident without caring where we were heading. Now this happened at 11.30 am near a well visited 'monument' and on a road that carried, comparatively, a lot of traffic. There is little doubt in our minds (at least) that the person intended us real harm and but for auto lock and toughened glass may well have done unknown damage to us. Thinking about it later it was also pretty obvious that he had done this before as his actions were too smooth and 'practised to be happenstance. And, at the risk of repeating myself, this didn't happen in a back alley in the sordid end of a major run down city late at night but on a well travelled road in the middle of the day in a rural area. We eventually found a nice pub and had a traditional English Roast within the comfort and good fellowship that can only be found in an English country pub at Sunday lunch time and tried to forget about the whole thing.
I have travelled to many strange places during my lifetime and have, in the carelessness of youth, exposed myself to dangers that I wouldn't dream of doing today. In all those years I have never come closer to a real problem than earlier today.