The they—that mystical group who have a lot to answer for, including why dog insurance is so expensive—say, in their infinite wisdom, that to become a professional therapist, hairdresser, or whatever, that one must first experience the therapy or whatever themselves. Only then can he / she fully appreciate what it must be like. What nonsense! The only time I think this is true is for becoming a driving instructor. I know this because I am one, and to become one I had to first undergo a ruthless test.

The test was horrible. As a grown man, outside of my marriage it’s not often I am made to feel like a child, but the man testing me did quite nicely. “Get in, please”, he said when we met. No handshake, no nothing. I paused a moment, expecting him to turn around and say “Only joking old boy!” but he didn’t. I went round to the passenger seat. It brought back horrid memories of my driving test all those years ago–

(This post is not about what happened when I started my instructor training, because that’s all very dull. No, this is about my test. It was a cold day in November, and I was a young man–)

There I was, ready to face my test. It would have been fine had we, upon exiting the test centre, not been caught in the middle of a car chase. I remember it vividly: the instructor telling me to pull over, and me saying “I can’t! There’s a maniac cop behind me!” In truth In could have pulled over, but I didn’t want to. I knew that there was a strong likelihood that this was the one and only chance I would have to be involved in a car chase, and so I was taking it!

Suffice to say the chase went well. Lots of shouting, speed, and terrifying my examiner. I didn’t pass of course. He said that by exceeding 80mph in a 30 zone I had made myself unpassable.