So here is a little story I am going to share with you, some of you may be interested some may not but I have decided to share something with you to make my blog more personal! I know a lot of you will be thinking those idiots Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May who mess around with cars and make a show of it can't save someones life. Well in fact they didn't but the messing around with cars and finding out particular things did help my Uncle to save our lives and this is how..
I was in year 3 at school so around the age of 7, my grandad lived in South Africa. We didn't see him often so my mum had decided to book a trip for us to go and visit for 3 weeks. My sister who was only 5/6 years old was also coming along with my mum, dad, Auntie and Uncle we were all looking forward to visiting in a couple of months time. Sadly my Grandad passed away just before Christmas time. This meant that we would still have to go to Cape town but instead to pick up his ashes and bring them back to England. We were no longer looking forward to travelling so far now as all that was there was his house and my step nan who none of us knew that well.
So when the time arrived we were all sat on the aeroplane for around 11 and a half hours (i think!!) it seemed forever. When we arrived the air was so hot it felt like it smacked me in the face as soon as I got off the aeroplane. Anyway basically when we arrived we were given my Granddad's car to help us get around in out there. At this time it was still quite dangerous to be a white person out there as only 9% of the population were white since the apartheid. So on our second night we were travelling on their equivalent of a motorway however the slow lane was on the edge of a cliff! As there were 6 of us in the car (you are allowed to do that out there as they don't have such strict laws) wearing no seat belts because most of the cars out there weren't made with them we were forced to drive in the slow lane (Yes that was on the edge of the cliff!) My Granddad's car was quite old, as we were travelling along the high way at around 70mph my uncle who was driving suddenly said, 'woaahhh I can't stop!' We all thought that he was joking so we ignored him and carried on looking out of the car. It was pitch black so we couldn't see much but coming up ahead were a set of traffic lights that had just turned red. There we are flying down at 70mph with what seemed to be no attempt to slow down.
My Mum and Auntie at this point were shouting at him to slow down as my sister and I were only young. The next few words were the only words I heard in what seemed ages 'I am not joking I cannot stop the car, the accelerator is stuck down!' The car fell silent no one really understood what was happening. We could tell by the scared look on all of their faces that it was something bad. All our lives could of ended there. We could of gone through the red light so fast and caused a crash, or gone off the edge of the cliff never to be seen again (which was the likelihood in the situation we were in.) The car was speeding up and he was frantically trying to do something to help us slow down and stop. The process seemed to take minutes when in fact it must have been seconds or we would have been through the red lights. My Uncle did something none of us will understand or know as he just did it. He later said it was something to do with pulling the handbrake up whilst pumping the brake. I can't remember exactly but it was to avoid the car from skidding and allow it to come to a stop. We were all sat in shock at the edge of the road overlooking a cliff. My uncle told us that he had seen it on Top Gear a few years ago. It had suddenly popped into his brain before it was too late!
We were then stranded in the middle of South Africa in the pitch black with nothing to be seen around us. We couldn't leave the car as the wheels and everything on it would have stripped and taken by the Africans. Anyway that is another story, but it is safe to say Top Gear did in fact save my life. This proves that programmes that may appear stupid and pointless in actual fact do give out some important information that may come in use one day. It's just a shame I hadn't seen or remembered what it was exactly my Uncle did in order to stop the car. Just one things certain, it was a scary moment and I would not like to experience it again.
Apologies if this story built up suspense and ended in a way you wish it hadn't of!!
3 comments:
Whilst being an interesting story, your grammar and spelling really need work - it's very incoherent at times.
Really interesting story Sophie, can't possibly imagine how I would have felt in that situation but I second what George has said. You need to look over your grammar because there are a few mistakes. I know it's hard when you get into the story you're writing and you start typing fast and so mistakes happen but make sure you read over your work before you publish :)
Thankyou I will look over it just wrote the story quickly and went to get some dinner haha
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