John reaches end of road
John Breward retiring driving instructor. (Picture: Andrew Carpenter/001395-23)
A DRIVING instructor who has helped hundreds through their test is hanging up his L plates after 21 years in the profession.
John Breward (68) has been an independent driving instructor in Harborough since he retired from being a greengrocer.
Mr Breward, who lives in Elm Drive, had been running a greengrocers shop for 21 years but decided it was not something he wanted to do until retirement.
At the time, his uncle was a driving instructor, and as he fancied giving it a go, he chose to shadow some of the lessons.
After a rigorous testing procedure which included a theory test with 100 questions, a higher standard of driving test and a test of teaching skills, Mr Breward was given the go-ahead to recruit his own pupils.
The test of his skills to teach was conducted by Robin Cummins, the chief examiner at the Driving Standards Agency, who took Prince William on his driving test.
Mr Breward said: ““At the end of it he said thank you and we will let you know in the post and then he walked away but turned and smiled.
“My head was spinning and I was thinking ‘have I, haven’t I’, and you always remember the things you have done wrong and the things you could have done better but three days later I got the letter and I’d passed.”
Mr Breward, who is married to Joyce and has two children, said he has taught some people in Harborough to drive and then gone on to teach their children.
In all his time as a driving tutor he has only had to tell people three times that they “are wasting their money.”
His pupils have included people with dyslexia and mental illnesses but he said the hardest to teach were often those studying at university who sometimes, he said, ‘did not know their left from their right’.
Over all his years of teaching he has only ever had two bumps and these were not the fault of his pupils and so he has never made a claim.
Mr Breward said: “I’d like to thank all of my pupils over the years.”
He is regularly recognised whenever he is in town but as he has taken so many through their tests he sometimes struggles to put names to faces, especially when he taught the person 20 years before.
Mr Breward has taught his way through seven Ford Fiestas and two Vauxhall Corsas and is now hoping to hand over the keys of his last Corsa, for a price, to one of his old pupils.
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Friday 18 May 2012
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