I know of one driver who kept a 300 mm iron bar beside the driver’s seat as a motoring aid. He was a chap I knew in London. A two meters tall Jamaican.
Eddie was a really nice, peaceful guy who lived in Beulah Hill SE 19, an area of London. He was married to an English girl who was just under two meters tall. They made for a fairly imposing couple. However, both of them had such a hard time growing up, they made the conscious decision not to have children, who most likely would have vied for the title of the world’s tallest person.
Eddie drove a Triumph TR2. Remember them? Four cylinder British sports car of the 1950’s. A standard Vanguard engine with an extra carburetor hung on the side. His was one of the early models with the recessed grille. Being so tall, he didn’t really fit into anything, but by getting the seat racked back, and the back of the seat almost horizontal, he looked like an ordinary mortal in the TR2. Of course, in the UK in those days, dark Jamaicans were not as prevalent as they are today. In fact, you could go so far as to say they stuck out like a sore thumb, and were not universally popular with the English public.
Eddie had to put up with being abused at the traffic lights. “Go home coon,” was the cry hurled by other motorists. This was not the ‘politically correct’ times of today, but the late 1960’s. There was no PC legislation to protect Eddie, so he had to provide his own, and yes, you guessed it, the protection was a 300 mm iron bar he kept beside the seat.
Let me tell you, I have witnessed the verbal abuse at the traffic lights, which made cricket’s ‘sledging’ seem like kindergarten chats. Eddie would put up with so much, and then two meters of Jamaican with a 300 mm iron bar in his hand would unwind from a Triumph TR2, and in his best Jamaican voice, Eddie would reply, “What you want, white man?”
The reply was never more abusive words from the London motorist, but a Morris Minor (or similar) would ‘kangaroo’ through the traffic lights, irrespective of the color and quickly disappear. That round definitely went to the 300 mm iron bar.
