The A9 had been closed for months for a massive road rebuilding scheme designed to attract further tourism to the highlands of Scotland. Now that the construction work was finished, every hotel along the route offered views of the beautiful countryside. No longer did any look onto the busy road.

I was hired to ‘sweep’ the road just before it opened. My main role was to check that the freezer-sized robot ball-bearing steamrollers deployed to smooth the new tarmac had all been recaptured at the end of the work.

This terrified me, especially since the accelerator of the high performance car allocated to me to complete the job was stuck to the floor, and I couldn’t reach the brake. Racing along the A9 at 100 mph without any means of stopping was no fun at all.