A embarrassing gear change!

I decided to get some fuel for the first Capri Club run of the year, so I headed off to the local servo. On arriving at the top of my street, I went to change into first gear, which has always been a little difficult, only to find the gear stick was loose in my hand and coming out of the rubber boot! Yes, a bit embarrassing - how do you change gear without a gear stick?  Thankfully, it is a  quiet street and with a bit of fiddling, I found that there was the very short selector rod that joined to the broken section & with some juggling, I was able to still select gears. Fortunately, I was able to drive the car around the block & get it home without any further incident.
On closer inspection, the top section of the gear stick had broken away from the section that fits over the bottom rod. After consulting some my local experts, I was able to remove the inner rubber grommet. I then took the broken sections to a specialist welding firm who did some magic and for $15, it was better than new. So, hopefully, that doesn't happen again, but, with 40 year old cars, you never know when you are in for a surprise!
Here are a few pictures of the offending gear stick!