I had lived in this part of the world for years before I found Steve. And one of my most fervent hopes is that his desire to keep spannering my cars outlives my desire to keep driving them. Because without him, bluntly, I’m stuffed.
We all need a Steve. It doesn’t matter whether I send him the family Golf, my Caterham or the Fiat 500, he can service, MOT and fix them all. When I had a Twenties Alvis he’d do that too and when the water pump on my ancient grey-import Kubota tractor failed and Kubota told me I’d have to scrap it, he found some new old stock in Iowa and FedEx’d it over. What Steve doesn’t know isn’t worth mentioning, apart from the fact he could double his prices and I’d still send him all my stuff.
Steve is not a specialist. He runs a small garage in a market town and lives on a staple diet of Golfs, Focuses and Qashqais all old enough to no longer merit franchise dealer attention. But he is bloody good at what he does and as important to my life down here as the bloke who shears the sheep and does the fencing. I couldn’t get by without him.
