0811251300 Uncle Dan.

One of my earliest memories of Uncle Dan is of him competing in a motorbike race. He was racing for something that was apparently worth risking his neck for when he was involved in an accident.
It was a bright day, the track was out in a field that had just the right amount of rolling green hills to make seeing the entire race almost impossible. As a kid, I was looking for the motorbikes, but they were always going into a valley where I could not see them. Suddenly, Everyone seemed very concerned – Dan was in some sort of accident – he came off his bike and, according to the story that I was told when I was five years old, another rider ran over his arm.

Later, much later, about 25 years later, Uncle Dan told me more about what happened. There are no details on who, what or how this particular accident occurred, but it does not take a great imagination to see how an accident just might possible when a bunch of young amateur motorbike enthusiast get together for the sole reason of seeing who can go the fastest.

Dan came off his bike and in a manner that is feared by bike riders, he slid along the rough hot asphalt, rolled into the gravel and finally stopped on the edge of the track with, among other injuries, a broken nose, a broken arm, various cuts, abrasions and a temporally deflated ego. He was smacked in the face by a racetrack at a speed that can be described as "as fast as I can go" and it sure made his eyes water. Dan just lay there, on his back, gathering his thoughts, with his eyes closed. There was blood on his face and his eyes were stinging. He heard the approaching footsteps of a track marshal as he ran towards Dan, the marshal stopped nearby and there was a long silence. After a while the marshal started to walk away. "Aren't you going to help me?" Dan asked, mustering all the dignity that he could given that he could not see and his arm, between his elbow and his wrist, had an extra right-angle bend. The track marshal was surprised and said "Oh sure, I thought you were dead!"

Uncle Dan had some amazing stories about his adventurous outdoor lifestyle that frequently involved some sort of horrific injury. The stainless steel pins that held Dan's broken arm in place were later used as a macabre trophy for an athletic event at one of the fabulous family picnics.

Dan Nightingale 28/07/1934 - 23/11/2008.