The Mechanic’s Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was written between 1397 and 1400 and 700 years later is a much favoured text for GCSE students with many allegorical chapters. The Wife Of Bath’s Tale is a bawdy romp, the Knight’s Tale speaks of ethics and courtly love, the Manciple’s Tale even has a talking crow, but I’ll vouchsafe none has a set of Snap-on wrenches, a banter-filled workshop and a vibrator under the seat…

Let me suggest The Mechanic’s Tale as a suitable inclusion in a rebooted Chaucerian text. For this is a noble calling indeed and, as with most, criminally under-valued until it all goes wrong.

‘The phone calls all begin: “You’ve got to help me!”,’ says Jason Ellis, proprietor of Northfields, a family-run general service workshop in Stamford, Lincolnshire. ‘And I think, oh boy, this is going to be good…’