Ian Gravell is one half of the third generation of the family-run motoring firm. But a car crash almost put paid to all that and utterly reshaped his life

Ian Gravell was just 26 when he was involved in a car crash which left him with a fractured skull, broken ribs, and his legs broken in 26 places. It was a Friday evening and as he was airlifted to hospital and the surgeons and doctors were unsure if he'd even make it to Saturday morning.

But Ian – one half of the Gravell brothers behind the Gravells car dealership – did survive and after rebuilding his life over the following weeks and months he thought he was over his life-changing crash. That was until the now 53-year-old sat down and started writing a book about his life at the start of the very first Covid lockdown.

As he relived the traumatic events of not just the car crash, but the long road to recovery afterwards, Ian found himself weeping as he wrote in his self-built shed in the garden. And he struggles to hold back the emotions as he recounts his fractured memories of the crash over a squash at the Stopio café in his hometown of Narberth. Read about the heart-breaking story behind Stopio here.

"The fire brigade had to cut me out of the car," he said haltingly. "I can remember seeing the fireman who was talking to me through the process. I was too scared to open my eyes because I thought my legs had been cut off. I was picking my daughter up from nursery at the time and I couldn't remember if I had picked her up and killed her or not. You don't want to live any longer at that stage." Thankfully, Ian had been on his way and his daughter was still safe.

Ian's injuries were extensive and they've left him with daily pain even now, more than two decades later. Not that you'd know it by looking at him as he roars toward the café on his Indian Scout motorbike. It's undeniably a beautiful bike and the sun glints off the polished chrome and Springfield blue bodywork. He strolls over in a grey T-shirt with the motto: "Ride, eat, sleep, repeat" emblazoned across the front and tattoos just peeking out below the short sleeves.

He flashes a disarmingly kind smile as he sits down and he speaks more quietly than I was expecting. Ian and his brother Jonathan are the third generation of Gravells to take on the car dealership which started in a tin shed in 1932 in Banc Pendre Road in Kidwelly. Today the Kia and Renault dealership has branches in Kidwelly, Narberth, Swansea, Bridgend, Abergavenny, and Hereford.

Ian heads up the Narberth branch and lives just up the road with his wife Wendy. His son Lewis, 27, is the fourth generation to enter the Gravells business.

"When I was in hospital I was in a bad way," said Ian, pausing to swallow the emotion. "I was living on a life-support machine. I thought my mates were coming to see me in hospital before I died. I didn't think I was going to live."

When he first arrived doctors "wouldn't commit" to any prognosis, he said. "It was more like: 'We'll see if he survives the weekend,'" he said. "They basically left me open all that first night and then rammed rods down my femurs. For the first 10 days I was just surviving." After two weeks he was being lifted out of bed and onto a wheelchair and as he slowly started to recover he spent the next seven months in and out of hospital. In all he had 13 operations on his legs.

He went back to the family home – which had to be adapted to accommodate his disabilities – and learned to walk all over again alongside Lewis, who was just 18 months old at the time. "We learned to walk together," said Ian. The first hurdle to overcome was taking just a few steps between parallel bars. Walking his first three steps left him an "awful sweaty mess" and it made him question everything. He said: "I thought: 'Do I want to walk again if it's going to be this painful?'" But less than six months after leaving hospital Ian, who'd always been a keen surfer, took up kayak surfing and in 1988 he was awarded Carmarthenshire Disabled Sportsman of the year.

Still in his mid-20s at the time of the crash, Ian hadn't really settled on what he wanted to do in life. He left school at 16 and went straight into the family business before working briefly as an insurance broker. But the pull of Gravells was always going to win. Ian credits his parents for making sure he was well looked after during his recovery. These days he's content to manage the Narberth Kia branch and the garage has won many customer service awards, is always in the top five Kia garages in the UK, and has boasted the best market share in the UK for the past three years.

A keen musician and guitarist, Ian turned to music to help him through the dark times. Don't Go, by Hothouse Flowers, was one of his favourites. He cannot failed to be moved by the lyrics, even now, which took on a deeper meaning as he lay in hospital not knowing if he'd walk again: "Don't leave me now, now, now, While the sun smiles, stick around and laugh a while."

He's also a Bruce Springsteen fan, he said, and learned to walk to the soundtrack of Dancing in the Dark. He said: "You have no idea how much of an effect that song has on me."

His love for America grew in part because of his motorbikes but also the music. At the start of lockdown, in March 2020, Ian bought an old refrigerated shipping container and stuffed it full of his bikes, some gym equipment, and memorabilia from his travels. His guitar is hanging on the wall. There are few countries he's not been to on a motorbike and it was in that converted shipping container he wrote his book, often starting late at night and writing until the sun came up. It was initially to tell his grandkids what he'd been through in life but the book took on a life of its own and has now been published with a proper launch in September this year.

The book – called Loose Gravel: Broken bones, broken dreams made good on a broken road – is centred on his travels across America on the infamous Route 66 on a motorbike in the summer of 2019. The 2,400-mile journey was "draining and exhausting" and Ian spent much of it dosed up on painkillers to get him trough the long days of riding. It had always been a dream and turning 50 was a catalyst to make it happen. "It's the best thing I've done as an adult with my clothes on," he grinned, adding there was a caveat to that. "But with the exception of learning to walk again."

He said: "This is a story of part of my life, how I got over the accident, the problems I had in my head thereafter, and great motorcycle journeys I have ridden including Route 66. But this isn't just a twist of the throttle, burning rubber tale – it is about life's journey, not the destination, and the good people I meet on the way." His American trip left him blown away by the scenery, the culture, the art, the museums, and the hospitality: "Everyone was so nice," he said.

His words sometimes take on a deep, almost philosophical, meaning, I say. Was he always like that? "My editor wanted to use the word 'mental health' when describing my book," he said. "At first I was very uncomfortable with that but as time went on I realised it was the right word to use.

"The book is a brilliant thing to be doing. It made me address things. I was a different person after the accident. I think I'm a much nicer person now." Sadly his first marriage didn't survive the aftermath of the crash but he's happily married again with two children, Lewis and Abi, two step-children, Josh and Jazz, and three grandchildren.

"Sometimes I will go quiet and I can't talk," he said. "It's just something I've got to go through. Sometimes it will be an hour or two, sometimes it will be all day."

His work keeps him busy, as do his roles as trustee of Paul Sartori and the Queens Hall in Narberth. He is somewhat perplexed there's been any interest in his story at all, let alone a book about it. He's even been invited over to Pennsylvania to do an American launch too. There's an intensity behind his words as he says: "You can go from everything being hunky dory to being nearly at the end of your life. I suppose being in such a bad way I was an underdog and people always like an underdog don't they?"

If he's learned anything since the crash it's that "people need to be more kind", he said. "There's a scale of enjoyment through to pain," he added. "If the enjoyment outweighs the pain then it's worth cracking on with. I hope the book will help people who've had an accident and are having a hard time dealing with it." You can read more about Ian's book and blog here.

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