A man from Yorkshire has been hailed a 'fantastic dad' after travelling hundreds of miles to the Scottish Highlands so his son could sit his driving test.
Paul Miller, from Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, has seen a flood of well-wishers praise him after he posted about the almost 500-mile trip with son Fin.
After starting a new job for LNER, and with Paul working in the railway industry himself, 18-year-old Fin was desperate to get on the road so he could get to and from work.
Paul looked for any available tests, and found one in Gairloch, Wester Ross, so booked it. The trip was anything but smooth for the pair though with accommodation being cancelled, the test itself having to be rebooked and a first run on the Highland roads throwing up a few problems for Fin, who eventually passed.
Posting about the trip on Twitter, people said they had been left "in tears" over his dedication as a dad, but Paul, 48, played down what he'd done.
He told the Record: “I was looking for somewhere for him to sit his test, and everywhere was booked up, it was a nightmare. I kept looking, just going alphabetically, and it was just further and further afield.
“I got to ‘G’ and came across Gairloch. I thought I recognised it, because I’ve been to Scotland quite a few times, but I was getting mixed up with Garelochead – which is about an hour from Glasgow.
"Then I looked at the map and saw where it was, and realised it was a hell of journey, 464 miles. But Fin needed on the road so badly with his new work, it was a necessity really."
The pair planned out the travel times and set off. However, en route to the small village, Paul got a call to say their Airbnb accommodation in Gairloch was no longer available due to a faulty boiler.
This forced Paul to book the nearest available accommodation, a hotel in Inverness - an hour and a half from Gairloch.
The apparently doomed trip went from bad to worse when the local driving instructor in Gairloch called to say the test had now been postponed and moved to February.
Paul said: “I thought, ‘right we’re booked in a hotel in Inverness, let’s see what there is around here’.
“We were already halfway up at that point so there was no way I wanted to turn back. At that point, if the car had been powered by swearwords, we would have got to Scotland for free.”
Eventually a replacement test spot was found in Inverness, and the instructor from Gairloch was available to give Fin a guide of the city and a lesson before his test.
“We got there and this was a bit different from what Fin was initially preparing for. It’s not a big place, Inverness, but it’s big enough when you’re sitting your driving test.
“He got taken out on a lesson and there is this roundabout, the Inshes Roundabout, I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s mental!
“At the end of the double lesson the instructor said he would have failed him for a couple of major things, so Fin was devastated about that. I said to him, ‘look, you’re here now, you’ve got nothing to lose’.
“He couldn’t drive on his own before he arrived and if he failed then he still couldn’t, so he hadn’t lost anything.
“It was great and we were buzzing, but I think because we had been so tired with the travelling, when we got back to the hotel we just crashed out."
After a round-trip of 965 miles - 22 hours and 18 minutes - Fin finally returned home to take his Ford Ka for its first spin.
Posting about it on Twitter, Paul was surprised to find he had been dubbed an incredible dad for the lengths he went to to see Fin pass his test.
One person said: "Great story. Genuine shame you didn’t get to Gairloch. In Scotland’s Box of Treasures, it’s a gem. You two will have to make that trip another time."
Dawn Butler, the MP for Brent Central, wrote: "Oh my I just loved reading that. I have a big smile on my face. Congratulations to your son on passing his driving test."
Another Twitter user said: "That is actually awesome, I was going to say that's going the extra mile, but let's go for several hundred!"
Another said: "An utterly lovely and absurd story about the daft amount we love our kids. You're just an incredible dad for doing that, brilliant."
Paul was modest about what he'd done, saying: "I didn't post about it for any adulation or anything, it was more to keep friends and family updated about what was happening.
"And I took him there because he needed to pass his test. He was working shifts and with my shift pattern, I couldn't manage to take him all the time. We looked into taxis but they were £25 a go, so that was no use.
"I was obviously surprised to find out how many people were commenting and sharing, and it has been nice."
He added: "I have a daughter, Isla, who is 17 next year. I was thinking about that, worrying. I'll probably end up in Orkney or something daft with her!"
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