Remembering
our Little Daihatsu Extol Van
|
About Hoofbag
origins:
As a child, the Hoofbag spent most of Its time isolated in Its bedroom. Hoofbag's father hated the
Hoofbag,
the Hoofbag was scared of him. When the Hoofbag became adult It had inclination to mix with people,
a ‘People Person’. Living in London, this drove Hoofbag to partake on tenant
consultation
groups. Upon moving to St Leonards, East Sussex, The Hoofbag volunteered on the Hastings
Community Housing committee. In social housing the Hoofbag got acquainted with people
having compromised health. Clearly, some tenants deserved higher rewards of
DWP benefits. A blind lady and husband/carer, deserved higher
DWP rewards. The Hoofbag got them DLA. Also, a learning disabled man was wrongly deemed
capable of independent living. 3 years later, he died. RIP Simon, you
were a gr8 guy! The Hoofbag's partner John died in 2011. Unbeknown to the Hoofbag, he had left his
chalet to It, where Hoofbag now lives. |
On the 21st
February 18, 15.00, the Hoofbag went to our micro van only to discover that all
four tyres had been slashed. We very much struggle financially, the van
belong to my partner.
|
|
So important in our lives
are our vehicles, being the second major purchase after our homes.
Gemma bought our little Daihatsu Extol Van out of her redundancy pay. Our idea
was to do little jobs here and there, such as moving sofas and fridges, but
also building materials to improve our home. We’re desperately poor. If I need
to do any alterations or improvements, we can generally do these things for
ourselves. Contemplating an immediate future of extreme poverty, we felt
confident that the resourceful two of us, equipped with our little van, would
be an efficient little unit capable of, not only helping ourselves but others
as well, as we’ve always done. I get a small amount of widows’ pension that I
use to buy food and other things and at the moment I’m supporting my partner out of
my income because she has no effective income. If we’d been allowed to keep our
little van, we might have had the possibility of increasing our income so we can
keep ourselves warm and fed in the harsh winter.
|
|
|
From
when I originally drove a micro van, I thought of them as my favourite run about
vehicle. The first one I had was a Honda Activan. With only a 650CC engine, I
was astonished how fast this thing went: for a tiny engine like this, I managed
to get 70mph out of the thing and it really did have more to offer. I didn’t
want to break the speed limit, though. Honda really do make excellent small engines
with so much power for their size and is how this Japanese company built their
world renowned reputation with all their vehicles. Sadly, the van had to be scrapped when a car
collided with the back of our little Honda. Like many of these micro-vans, the
engine is mounted low down in the chassis to give a good centre of gravity. A collision may
cause the chassis to skew and the engine will never come out, however hard the
mechanic tries, in the event of maintenance. Most of the top engine parts in
these vans are accessible through a removable panel in the floor, such as spark
plugs and timing adjustments.
|
The
Daihatsu engine is under the seats and is 1.3L. It can manage 70mph but the
engine is reving really high at this speed, so I felt
safer going at a lower speed: 60MPH max. This van certainly
isn't a motorway mucher! 60 would be my maximum
suggested speed for comfort. The van handles really
well, especially when cornering and the relatively high
driving angle makes it a lot easier at night to see
the road and hazzards, good for us over 60s lot. I’m friends with one or two local bands and
musicians. I’ve always wanted to be in a band but suffering ME/CFS means that
I’m not able. However, I loved feeling part of the Hastings music scene through
my contribution of being able to move amplifiers, speaker cabinets and large
keyboard units. I can rarely lift these things myself but the guys would do the
lifting as long as I could drive and provide the van. Mindless thugs are cable
of nothing at all but claiming DWP benefits and popping out sprogs, using their
fecundity to hold the state to ransom. Most would be incapable of hanging a
shelf, fitting a plug on the end of a power lead or a full house rewiring,
something the Hoofbag and partner would undertake with ease. The Hoofbag is
a qualified electrician and electronics engineer. |
|
|
When some mindless, useless
thug sets out to slash your tyres, most would just arrange a repair with
a garage mechanic who’d send out a low loader and the vehicle will be picked up
and driven away, only to be returned problem sorted, sometime later. The
garage would probably arrange to have a courtesy car so that the family’s day
to day routine isn’t disrupted. An issue here is, if we tried to get the
insurance company to help, it would result in an increased premium at the time
of insurance policy renewal. Whatever solution to our Daihatsu Extol van repair
issue is pursued, huge expense was entailed. A low loader has to be sent out and
that alone costs money. Where the van has to be collected from is a severely
space restricted area, incurring additional difficulties. It was an uneconomical
repair. If we were to be
audacious enough to start using our parking space, that we own, we run the risk
of another tyre slashing on the replacement vehicle, as once the hired thugs have been here once, knowing
our van’s location, more slashing will commence. One bonus for other residents
is the availability of an extra parking space. Parking spaces in our vicinity
are a constant cause of conflict, like anywhere else in our crowded part of the
world, the UK.
|
Already,
local people are taking the liberty of using our space for their cars, which
will probably include the associates of the scum who slashed our tyres.Accordingly, if the vehicle is presumed to be ours, your vehicle is at risk.
Be warned!
Slashing tyres is a serious criminal offence but the local Hastings police
force is not at all interested, we’re on our own, even though knife crime is
on the increase: 14 youths were fatally stabbed in Londistan
between the start of the year and May. Please note: anyone reading
this might have a suspicion of the associate and who they might have employed
to cause the damage to our tyres. Not necessarily linking these actions to any
car owned by someone who has a vehicle provided on the UK Motability scheme, we’d
strongly urge anyone to avoid retaliatory actions against any car owner in our
vicinity. Really, don’t do it! The UK Motability scheme provides vehicles to
‘special snowflakes’, to use a modern colloquial. Unlike the rest of us who may
suffer vandalism at the hands of these mindless thugs, the Motability scheme
have at their disposal large sums of money to employ private investigators to
pursue a case against anyone interfering with their vehicles. Be warned! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|