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Angels don’t always appear with long robes and big wings, as we found out a few years ago.  My partner, Richard, and I drove to Rochdale, UK from South Manchester in what was then a newly acquired car.  The journey at that time included one section of motorway, a couple of miles long.  When we arrived in Rochdale we had to stop at some traffic lights.  A van pulled up on the inside lane beside us and the driver leaned out to speak to me.  When I wound the window down he said,  “There’s something wrong with your tyres at the back” and he moved off as the lights turned green.  Richard then said that he had felt the car was pulling a bit to one side, but not so badly that he had been worried.  As we drove through the lights we saw a Kwik-Fit sign about a hundred yards ahead.  I looked for the van, but somehow it seemed to have disappeared.

When we pulled into Kwik-Fit, there was a ramp waiting for the next customer, and we drove onto it and got out of the car.  The mechanic raised the ramp and immediately called us back and asked where we had come from.  When we told him, he said “Along the A627M?”  We said that we had.  “At 70 mph?”  Again we said yes.  “Well, you’re not driving anywhere else.  I’m amazed you’re not dead,” he said.  He then showed us the state of the back tyres.  The off-side tyre was worn down to the metal braid lining and the near side was just through the braid, exposing the inner tyre tube.  The mechanic told us what had caused it was that a rear suspension unit had been fitted incorrectly by a previous owner.  The tyres were replaced and we eventually went happily on our way.

It was only in retrospect that we realised that things were not quite what we had thought.  First, it was little short of miraculous that neither tyre had blown while we were doing 70 mph.  Then it was amazing that Kwik-Fit were so close, just where we needed them and that when we drove in there was a ramp, just waiting for us.  However, the main miracle was the van and the driver.  He had not been behind us on the motorway, and only pulled up beside us once we were standing at the lights.  When we checked the view he would have had from his seat when approaching us, we realised that the car body sat so low on the tyres that there was no way he could have seen the state of the tyres, let alone a fault in them.  Also, when I looked for him on the road as we went through the lights, the van had disappeared.  Don’t tell us that it was just a lucky chance – as far as we are concerned he was an angel, he just didn't appear to be wearing his wings that day!

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