When should you shoot the messenger?

I was 19 at the time.

In the summers I’d work for my Dad’s engineering company. 

He did a great job of both throwing me in at the deep end and giving me room to learn through mistakes and exploring. It's a tough tightrope between nepotism and parenting which in hindsight he played brilliantly.

It was mid-summer - must have been 1990.

“We need you to take this equipment up to Glasgow tonight. Drop it off, stay over then come back tomorrow."

The equipment in question was a robotic crawler with magnetic wheels that was used to identify cracks in metal using ultrasound - you see, the robots starting taking our jobs 30 years ago!

The location in Glasgow was Faslane. 

And the metal in question was a nuclear submarine.

Gulp.

But on the bright side, I got to drive a rented Ford Scorpio 2.8 injection for 200 miles up to Glasgow on a summer evening with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons blasting out as I curved through stunning scenery. 

And I'd get to cap it off with room service and a beer. 

I wasn’t fully paying attention when the rental company driver dropped off the V6 beast and explained that the last renter had stolen the tax disc. 

There was some document or other in the glove box. Or something.

Fey fob. Blip.

Electric Seats. Whiirrrrr.

Ignition Key. Vrooom.

Ooooh - automatic too. Cool.

“Stuart… Have you got the AQAP paperwork? The MOD are fussy and this stuff needs to be on site before 8 AM tomorrow for an inspection…?”

Of course I had it. I wasn’t stupid.

“Yep. It’s on the passenger seat.  Bye.”

I adjusted the mirror, checking my hair and sunglasses for style before lurching the big Ford out of the industrial estate.

It was a great journey. No traffic. Cruising at 80 or 90 and stopping off at the services for a Coke and Twix. The sun was low on the hills as I broke into Scotland around 8 PM ready for a drop off before sunset.

"Big girls don’t cry…..”

Frankie was on form and I was in my element.

I followed the analogue Sat Nav (aka OS Map) to Faslane and glanced at the warning signs in the long avenue that leads up to gatehouse as I crawled along obeying the 20 MPH limit.

The thing that reminded me of this whole experience was a BBC News Story I randomly saw last week - 505 'safety events' at Faslane nuclear submarine base over the pas 12 years. 

That’s around 1 per week I mentally calculated as I remembered my own incident with a shiver and sphincteral gulp.

The guards at the gatehouse waved me through as they raised the barrier. I drove on for another 200m or so before reaching a second gatehouse - cleverly trapped in a kind of military no-man’s land.

The guards on this gatehouse were a little less accommodating, giving a stern STOP signal and guiding me to park in a white lined box. One guard game to my window as the other circled the car with a machine gun and a mirror on a stick - presumably looking for bombs rather than low tyre tread.

I remember the following 60 seconds so vividly that I still know what an electric window switch on a Ford Scorpio looks and feels like. 

It was 21:12 on the digital clock. I have a thing for palindromes.

I wound down the window and looked into the half-moon blue eyes of the solder as he peeked out beneath the peak of his cap. 

"What’s your business here?"

He lifted his head as he spoke revealing full-moon eyes that squinted in the sunlight.

"I’m dropping off some equipment”

I said as I proudly and confidently handed over the formal paperwork from the passenger seat. He absorbed it and looked at me a couple of times, glancing on to the folded down rear seats and the stainless steel and aluminium creature that I was delivering.

I was vaguely aware of his partner sidling around to the passenger window but became more alert as he knocked on the window with his knuckle, motioning for me to wind it down.

As the window reached its resting point, he barked...

“Where’s your tax disc?”

as he nodded to the empty space on the window bearing a vacant circle of adhesive.

“Ah. Let me explain…”

I said as I lurched forward and flicked open the glove box to get the rental car paperwork.

My head was at dashboard level when I simultaneously heard his now growling voice and felt something next to my head.

“Don’t f***ing move. What the f**k do you think you’re doing?”

I looked to my left to see the barrel of a machine gun pointing through the window at my head.  It was so close that I could smell it. I remember thinking that my last though might be that I'd be killed with the same gun that one of my Action Men had - with a side loading magazine and holes on the barrel.

My body involuntarily did things that it hasn’t done since.

I gibbered feverishly that that paperwork was in the glove box and that I was just delivering equipment. 

Literally don’t shoot the messenger.

Please.

3 minutes passed and we were all laughing. They were laughing harder 20 minutes later when I drove the now empty Ford Scorpio back through the gatehouse. Even the friendly guards on the exit mimed mock gunshots to me as I drove out, laughing as they peppered my rental car with imaginary bullet holes.

That night, after nibbling on my room service, I lay on the hotel bed reflecting on what felt like a near death experience before driving back the next day a little more sheepishly.

“Big girls don’t cry…”

The BBC article that reminded me of this episode contained a stand out quote in the copy…

"None of the events caused harm to the health of any member of staff on the Naval Base, or to any member of the public."

So, these 500 nuclear incidents weren’t dangerous?

You see, there’s a difference between scary and dangerous.

My episode was scary but not very dangerous. 

When you do stuff (or convince yourself not to do stuff) you should make a conscious distinction between the stuff that makes you feel scared and the stuff that’s dangerous.

Scary stuff doesn’t harm you. It stretches your comfort zone. It gives you experience. It tests your ability and your confidence. It even gives you little anecdotes like this one.

But dangerous stuff is different. It can harm you and others.

Don’t do dangerous stuff. Please.

But don’t not do things because you're confusing scary with dangerous.

That's madness.

I think I probably learned that when I was 19. But I only learned how to articulate it 20 years later.