An Old Soldier-A Parking Ticket-A Donation to SSAFA  at Christmas.

On Sunday the 5th December the old soldier-84 left his home at 10.30 am  to travel by car to his local branch of his Army Association meeting, as he had previously done each first Sunday morning of the month for the past year. On this occasion he parked his car in the road near the church almost opposite the public house and as he left his his vehicle directly before him his immediate attention was completely taken up by a wooden post which had been put into an open grating in the pavement and his eyes moved up to the top of the post to reveal Christmas decoration he was so transfixed by the scene and he then walked to his branch  meeting a short distance to attend the meeting and a social chat which took up almost 2 hours, after which he retraced his steps back to his vehicle to find something stuck to his windscreen. It turned out to be a parking ticket.

 He was greatly shaken because after 65 years driving he had never had a parking ticket before.. He turned around to find a parking notice directly behind the post with the decorations and then realised that his earlier preoccupied and intensely concentrated look at the  post  supporting the decorations has so absorbed his attention that he had missed seeing the parking sign.

He travelled home a short distance from the Warwick centre and when he arrived home he mentioned his great shock about receiving a parking ticket and the first response from his wife was 'I thought that it was free parking on a Sunday'. After a short while the old soldier decided to return to the scene to find out why he had missed seeing the sign .  When he again went past the  place where he had parked he noticed that the sign was partially obscured by the wooden post supporting the decorations and then proceeded home to ponder on the matter.

It was on arriving home a short time afterwards that he suddenly understood that he had parked in exactly the same place the month before and suddenly to his horror he recalled that on that occasion he had indeed put a ticket in his vehicle  and he then understood that it was because he was so preoccupied looking at the post and decorations that he had left the vehicle with no idea that he should have taken a ticket from the machine. and he understood that he would have to visit the town hall on the Monday to explain what had happened and that they might not believe his account of the matter and that he would have to pay the fine.

It then came to him that he had previously asked his wife to send a cheque to the Forces Charity-SSAFA as they had done on other occasions in the past and decided that he would  if given the opportunity to say to the person at the town hall responsible for taking the payments of the fine that it was not so much the fine that he was concerned about even though he  and his wife were on a small income requiring some support but that he had in his 65 years driving to his recollection never had a parking ticket before and if it was agreed that it was a genuine error on the old soldiers part  then he would donate the sum for the fine to  be added to the intended donation  to SSAFA..

To be continued.