Recently, I was the unfortunate recipient of a broken bike lock. After several years of use, of twisting and turning and creating all sort of various angles to make my bike secure on the streets and lamp stands of Oxford, the key for my trusty lock simply gave up – snapping inside the lock and leaving my bike unusable.
What to do? Well, thankfully Oxford City Council operates a Street Care Team which helps free abandoned or unused bikes. My situation was obviously of wanting to use my bike again, but couldn’t because there was no way I could summon the Herculean strength required to pry the lock apart!
So after a swift phone call, the team was more than happy to help me out. So long as it was before 7am (because that was the safest period to operate the high-powered buzz saw!). It’s not out of the regular workings of the team’s day to respond to these kinds of call I had to make, but boy was the scene in downtown Oxford one to see!
That's what I call a light show!
One good turn, naturally, deserves another. But how best to do that? My friendly boss recommended I show my appreciation with a letter to the Editor at the daily newspaper . And sure enough it made it to print! That made my day, so I just wanted to reproduce it here:
Just a short note to express my gratitude to Oxford City Council’s Street Care team after they agreed to release my locked bike.
Having snapped off the key in the lock by accident, I was anxious to know how I could have my bike released without paying a huge fee for a private locksmith to do it.
In this day and age when people can only ever find things wrong about the city council’s services, this should hopefully re-balance the scales a little bit.
It may have been an early 7am start to watch the sparks fly as team member, Barrett, used his high-powered saw to buzz through the lock to release it – [but] I am grateful for him having done so.
He approached the situation with humour and understanding, and was very efficient in the process which allowed me to get to work on time.
Oxford is a city meant to be seen from the saddle of a bike and I’m thankful I can do that again. My appreciation to the council.
Jonathan Davis
Cross Street
Oxford–Oxford Mail, February 16 2010
So there you go, if you never need a helping hand – it’s literally around the corner, saw-in-hand!
