Thanks for all the replies, some of the items i already carry some i will be getting. The string from a number of years back was interesting also, laughed at the crack about swatting flies ! It's not a particular long trip that i had in mind, six to seven hundred miles is probably the longest done so far, only had the Pagoda a year now. The AA and RAC are the biggest breakdown / recovery services in the UK and the real reason for my question was, if you break down and need a troublesome part replaced the chances are that the breakdown service will not carry parts for our cars which then means you have to be towed to somewhere who can fix it, breaking up the trip for possibly a day or two, whereas if you carry a small selection of troublesome parts the breakdown man could replace the part and you could carry on with your journey with only a small delay.