Twenty-four

No problem, Tony!

One of Britain’s greatest-ever rally drivers, the late Colin McRae, played a major role in my television career. In fact, Colin’s rallying and my television activities started around the same time in 1986. My first of very many interviews with him was for the preview programme for the 1987 RAC Rally. Colin’s father, Jimmy, was then three-time British Rally champion, who would go on to win the championship a record five times. I had known that eighteen-year-old Colin was rallying a Vauxhall Nova, mostly on Scottish events, and had competed on the Swedish Rally earlier in the year. I thought it would be a super story for my RAC Rally report to have a father and son competing in different cars, and talked to Jimmy about it, but was told there might not be funds available. During the Manx Rally in September (where young Colin won his class), I suggested to General Motors’ team boss Tony Fall that he should give Colin a few quid to get him on the rally. I am pleased to say that Tony came up with £4000, and Colin entered his first RAC Rally, an event he would go on to win three times. He never forgot that, which may explain why I had such easy access to him for so many years of television work.

Many people found Colin difficult to interview, and he really only ‘tolerated’ television crews, but he and I seemed to have some sort of special rapport and he never, ever gave me a problem. In fact, in confidence, at social occasions he would tell me what he thought of some of the other press and TV people. No names here, of course! I especially remember a Top Gear item we did prior to the 1995 RAC Rally, when the entire team of Colin, Richard Burns, and Carlos Sainz all went to the magnificent Butcher’s Arms Restaurant at Priors Hardwick, near the Banbury base of Prodrive, which was running the world championship Subaru 555 rally team. Lino and Peter Pires, proprietors of this wonderful watering hole, closed half of the restaurant so we could film the item, including my interviews, during the meal. Not far from Silverstone, the restaurant has now established itself as something of a mecca for motorsport and television stars, as the amazing picture gallery in the coffee lounge will testify. During Colin’s later assaults on the British Rally championship, I became known for popping up and interviewing Colin whenever and wherever he broke down or crashed. On one RAC Rally in the early nineties, he had to work frenziedly to rebuild the front offside suspension, after careering over rocks on the finish line of a stage in the Kielder Forest. We filmed the whole sequence and saw Colin complete the task before scurrying round to his driving seat. As he was fastening his seatbelt, I did the famous ‘Mason pounce’ and asked “Do you think you’ll make it to the Penrith control on time?” Colin smiled wryly and said “No problem, Tony!” and a new rallying catchphrase was born. With some humour, he uttered this phrase time and time again over the years, and at one point ‘No problem Tony’ T-shirts were marketed. When Colin memorably won the world championship in 1995, and the RAC Rally the same year, I was on the finish ramp at Chester racecourse to interview him live on BBC television. My microphone was also linked into the main PA system at the racecourse stands, and when I asked him how hard had the rally been, the entire crowd of tens of thousands of Colin’s fans shouted “No problem Tony!” Top rally photographer Colin McMaster of McKlein captured the moment brilliantly, as can see in this book. It was a memorable moment for me.

I went to my beloved Kenya for the last Safari Rally to be included in the World Rally Championship, in 2002, and at one point went up in the Ford helicopter with Phil Mills, who was then part of the Ford team, and was spotting animals for Colin. The chopper flew a quarter-of-a-mile ahead of the rally car, and if there were any hazards such as large animals or wayward locals in overloaded ‘matatu’ buses, Colin would be advised. I was privileged to be involved, and to be part of the celebrations organised by Ford boss Malcolm Wilson when Colin and Nicky Grist won the Safari, bringing the Focus its first win. In September 2007, the world of motorsport was completely numbed when 39 year-old Colin was killed after his helicopter crashed near his home in Lanark. The incident also claimed the lives of his 5 year-old son Johnny and two friends. It was, indeed, a very sad day for everyone in the world of rallying.

I had a fairly worrying time at the end of the Lombard RAC Rally at Chester in 1992, when I was asked by Dennis Adams, BBC’s executive producer, to interview winner Carlos Sainz on the finish ramp in Chester’s main street. As this was the last year of Lombard’s long-term sponsorship of this event, you can probably imagine the razzmatazz – huge crowds, spotlights, and cameras all over the place. It was my job to greet Carlos and co-driver Luis Moya, once they had done the champagne spraying bit, and interview them for precisely 90 seconds at 8.10pm. This interview would not only be taped for the Top Gear Rally Report programme to be shown later in the evening but would also be going out live. I was quite relaxed, despite a burglar alarm going off at a nearby shop, but fifteen seconds before I was expecting to be cued to start, I heard through my earpiece that there had been a cock-up of some sort and I should interview the winners for another full minute. Now, a minute may not seem a long time to you, but when you are all miked and earpieced up for a live television report, it is a lifetime. Anyway, I did what I had to do, and the sequence with Carlos and Luis, who were thankfully people I knew quite well and who spoke good English, went splendidly. I was congratulated on my performance by all concerned, but it could have been a nightmare and the end of my career. I remember seeing some of the interview replayed on the BBC main news programme later that night, and reliving every second.

Among the very many Top Gear items I enjoyed was an entry on the Tour of Cornwall Rally where I navigated my Top Gear pal, Tiff Needell, on his first ever rally. I am delighted to say that we won the Ford RS2000 section of the event. Mind you, it was the navigation that did it. No, I’m only joking! Not long after, we were together in another car, joined by all the other Top Gear presenters for a photograph to appear on the front cover of the Radio Times. This was certainly an accolade for the programme, and led to an evening party at BBC TV centre in London, attended by all those who had appeared on the front cover that year. It was certainly a star-studded gathering and I was lucky to spend some time chatting to one of my heroes of comedy, Ernie Wise and his wife, Doreen. They asked me how I was getting home, and kindly offered to take me back to their house at Dorney Reach, Maidenhead (in their Rolls-Royce, I should add) where I could be collected by my driver. I didn’t like to tell them that my ‘driver’ was a Banbury taxi queuing up at the station! It was during our conversation that Ernie suggested I should get on the cruise ships as an entertainer/lecturer – he was a great cruise enthusiast. I followed his advice.

I did not realise that Ernie Wise was something of a car enthusiast too, or that he watched Top Gear regularly. He asked me how we decided on items and how much rehearsal we did. Rehearsal? What’s that? I told him that we usually turned up wherever we were filming with a few notes on bits of paper, and said what the director suggested in his notes. Ernie was amazed. “Oh. That’s no good,” he said. “You must rehearse.” Of course, Morecambe and Wise were renowned for rehearsing their Christmas shows for five or six weeks, and many of their ‘ad libs’ were similarly rehearsed. I remember Ernie telling me that he had conceived the idea of that great ‘breakfast sketch’ to the stripper music, one of the greatest comedy classics of all time. “Ernie doesn’t like watching that,” said Doreen. “He hates the bit where he was whisking the eggs. He thinks the timing was wrong and he came in too soon.” Hearing of such perfection helped me a lot in my future TV filming.

In fact, I had another amazing happening that will lead to another bit of name-dropping! Whilst filming the Manx International Rally on the Isle of Man, our cameraman Jim Knights (he of the Dr Mahathir incident in Malaysia) spotted Manx resident Norman Wisdom in a small crowd of spectators near his home in Andreas. The shot was included in my report, and I made reference to the great film star’s attendance. A short time later, I received a note from him telling me that it was his ambition to appear on Top Gear! The following year he presented the prizes after the Manx Rally, and I was on stage with the man who was once Britain’s highest earning film star. Now in retirement, Norman invited me to visit him at home in the north of the island whenever I was over there. I saw him a few times, and he proudly showed me his new BMW M3, his Rolls-Royce, and incredibly, a fast motorbike that he used to ride around the TT course, at the age of 90!

Still on the name-dropping front, I cannot resist mentioning that Pirelli invited me in 1991 to a most exclusive function in London one evening to celebrate the 80th birthday of the greatest driver of all time, Juan Manuel Fangio. I met him and shook his hand, and received an autographed menu. Stirling Moss and Phil Hill were also in attendance, and Stirling made some rude remark about me to Fangio, but I will never know what he said.

Further afield, I regularly attended the Race of Champions, at which Michèle Mouton gathered together all the World Rally Champions to drive on a fast test track in various works rally cars she had obtained from manufacturers. We filmed the very first event in France in 1988, and nearly every year after, when Michèle moved the event to Gran Canaria. Ken Pollock included the annual event in Top Gear Motorsport, and Michèle gave us carte blanche to film whatever we wanted. Needless to say, I found myself sitting alongside every single world champion of the first twenty years as we charged around the fast gravel figure-of-eight track. It was interesting to observe the different driving styles of the champions, none of whom frightened me, thankfully, although Colin McRae came closest! Carlos Sainz gave me one of my magic TV moments in 1996 driving a Toyota. We had cameras and microphones inside the car and I remember saying that I felt so confident as brilliant Carlos, twice world champion, knew this track like the back of his hand. At that very moment Carlos lost it, and the Toyota clobbered a bank before flying in the air, eventually landing in a cloud of dust. “What happened then, Carlos?” I asked. “Oh! I think I drive too fast,” he replied, somewhat understatedly.

On a more genteel note, I filmed a huge event known as the Alpine Challenge in the summer of 1993. Over 100 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts assembled in Vienna to re-enact the great event run around the Austro-Hungarian Empire some 80 years before – the last time Rolls-Royce competed in motorsport. The hugely expensive vehicles came from all over the world, and were priceless. Jon Bentley, my producer, had worked hard to organise this outing, which would make a full one-hour programme and two Top Gear items. There was one proviso imposed by the powers-that-be in the BBC insurance division: on no account must I be allowed to drive any of the cars. I was a bit miffed by this, but as every car was worth more than a million pounds I suppose it was understandable! One splendid American owner took me in his car for a spot of filming in Croatia, and invited me to drive. I explained that I was not allowed, as I might break or crash it, according to our masters. “You can’t break this baby!” he said, “Anyway, if you do, I have another two at home!”

Another favourite ‘old car’ event was the Claret and Classics Rally held in France. I competed in it one year, navigating for Don Barrow in his Triumph TR3, and filmed it a couple of times for Top Gear. Organised by the splendidly eccentric Roger Deeley, the cars rallied around the lanes of France in the mornings before visiting magnificent chateaux each afternoon, where competitors partook of their fine wines. In 1992 we visited Chateau d’Yquem, home of an incredibly expensive dessert wine, where producer Dennis Jarvis borrowed a bottle so I could do a piece to camera. I was asked to hold a small glass of the precious liquid in my hand and say how wonderful it was, and that each competitor would receive a small glass of it. I kept having a little sip between takes until the camera crew thought they, too, would like to sample it. Eventually, the empty bottle was returned to the Baron, or whoever owned the Chateau, and he went completely spare. He had not expected us to drink the stuff, priced then at well over a hundred pounds a bottle, but merely to hold the bottle up to the camera! Funnily enough, I wasn’t all that impressed by the wine, and thought it tasted a bit like Dettol!

There was certainly variety in my life. I filmed in Florida at the Daytona 24 hour race, and in Jersey where I drove Bergerac’s famous Triumph Roadster, which had the worst steering I’ve ever known. I say this as an excuse, for when trying to emulate the opening shot of the popular Bergerac series, I clobbered the camera with my offside front wheel! I filmed at the Skoda rally team headquarters in Czechoslovakia, and in Dubai where they have a very sandy rally. My biggest memory there is of filling up an extremely empty Range Rover with petrol – the total cost was £6! Another rather strange claim to fame came a few years earlier when we were filming at the Motor Show at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. Mitsubishi had triple Grand National winning horse Red Rum in attendance. I thought it would be quite nice to say I had patted Red Rum, so did so. Regrettably the great animal moved as I approached, and stood on my foot! Still, not a lot of people can say that they were stepped on by Red Rum.

Speaking of large animals, producer Ken Pollock agreed that we should go out to Kenya in 1994 to film an amazing event called ‘Rhino Charge,’ run for charity to help preserve the magnificent beasts. The ‘rally’ consisted of many four-wheel drive vehicles driving over impossibly tough terrain, and made very good television. After the event, Ken decided that I should find some rhinos and stand in front of them for a piece to camera. With the help of a game warden we duly found a group not far from Nairobi, and I learnt my words and took up position. I then noticed that alongside the cameraman and sound-recordist there were two large men with rifles pointing at me. They explained that if the rhinos decided to come for us, they would shoot them. I must say, I thought that was a strange way of protecting the rhino!

I achieved a boyhood ambition of driving a fire-engine when we filmed the centenary celebrations of Dennis vehicles. I enjoyed pressing the blue button to get the sirens going, but didn’t appreciate quite as much wearing an oversized yellow fireman’s helmet, as when I came to the end of a very fast straight on the Dennis test-track, I braked hard, it came down over my eyes, and I sailed off into a field!

I love trucks and buses, and was thrilled to go with Richard Pearson to film The Story of Eddie Stobart. I was kitted out in the green uniform of their drivers, and took to the wheel of a Volvo FH12 articulated truck. It was another dream coming true. I got to know the entire Stobart family very well, and still keep in touch, although the Stobart Group is now a huge public company. I was invited to attend the Stobart 25th anniversary celebrations at the Dorchester Hotel in London, where Volvo had assembled a full-size truck inside the ballroom. Fellow Eddie Stobart spotters Jules Holland, Bernie Clifton, and comedians Cannon and Ball were among those of us entertaining. As many will know, every truck in the 2000-strong fleet has a girl’s name, and I was thrilled when Edward and William Stobart offered to name a truck Emma Nichola after my daughter.

Other memorable Top Gear items included the Reliant Robin world championship that took place at the Mildenhall race track in Suffolk, and was a sort of demolition derby. It was a 20-lap race, and all the other hooligan drivers were told to keep away from me, otherwise there would be no programme. Needless to say, they went for me on the last lap and biffed into me as I perfected the art of driving the three-wheeler on two wheels. I rolled the car twice, but restarted the engine and finished the event amid much cheering. I finished fifth in the Reliant Robin world championship, I am pleased to say, and of course the Top Gear item showed my great incident in detail. It’s still watched on YouTube.

Back on the trucking scene, I adored driving a 1953 Leyland Octopus up Britain’s once most feared road, the pass of Shap. In pre-motorway days, the pass was a real headache for truckers going to and from Scotland, and we relived those days when I took control of the eight-wheel Leyland. I drove it up and down the pass for hours and only missed a gear once, despite there being no synchromesh on the gear box and having to double declutch all the time. You won’t be surprised to learn that the only close-up shot of my feet on the pedals was that of the one gear I missed! I drove an even bigger truck when a 222-wheel Faun heavy low-loader collected some huge generators at Avonmouth docks. They had been shipped in from Germany en route to Didcot power station in Oxfordshire. I drove this leviathan around the docks, grappling with its thirty gears, before handing over to the proper driver who would take us on to the M4 motorway. The great vehicle travelled mostly at night, resting at service stations during the day, but at one point we were still on the motorway mid-morning as we crossed a bridge over the River Avon. All sorts of officials in reflective yellow jackets were there to measure the bridge for weight stresses, and the top brass from Wiltshire constabulary were there to stop all the east-bound traffic on the motorway, as the great behemoth had to straddle the centre lane. Traffic was building up behind the obstruction and my director, Chris Richards, thought it would be a nice idea to do one of my famous pieces to camera. I stood in the centre of the motorway (in my reflective yellow jacket, of course) and was encouraged by two senior police officers, who didn’t seem to mind when I fluffed my lines and the traffic queues built up even more. I heard them talking on their walkie-talkies, and can verify that the stationary traffic measured six miles when I started, but had extended to thirteen before I got my words right!

1997 was a mixture of emotions for me. In February I received an invitation to attend a reception at Buckingham Palace given by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to celebrate Sport in the Life of the Nation. Top sports stars, past and present, were invited and ushered into the various grand rooms to be presented to Her Majesty and members of the royal family. My invitation specified the White Drawing Room, which was, in fact, the first room visited by Her Majesty. Maybe they decide upon the positioning of presentees by height, but all I know is that I was in among all the jockeys including Willie Carson, Richard Dunwoody, and Tony McCoy. Maybe it was something to do with horsepower, as the two rallying Simmonite sisters were also in the line-up, as was now six-time Olympic equestrian competitor Mary King, who greeted me warmly, having met me at BBC’s Question of Sport and numerous horse events when my daughter Emma was competing. Her Majesty was, of course, very gracious, and had apparently seen our efforts on television output as she said “rallying looked extremely exciting.” I later had the honour of meeting other members of the royal family who were circulating. Prince Edward was very aware of my rallying activities (and crash) with his uncle, Prince Michael of Kent, and Prince Andrew, when being introduced, exclaimed “Ah! Reliant Robins – bloody marvellous!” The whole evening was memorable, and I found it amazing that I should have been speaking to two great footballers, Sir Stanley Matthews and David Beckham, on the same evening. I understood Sir Stanley earned £20 per week as a player and travelled to matches on a public service bus. The jockeys, meanwhile, were encouraging the liveried footmen to keep our champagne glasses well filled, so when the party broke up at about ten o’clock in the evening we all skipped down the front steps of Buckingham Palace, scarcely believing our good fortune.

Shortly after the Buckingham Palace shenanigans I filmed a super Top Gear item around the lanes of Sussex in a Mini-Cooper. I showed off doing various handbrake turns and reverse spins, and then took a very important passenger with me as we tracked behind the camera car. This passenger was none other than John Cooper himself, who developed the Mini into a serious competition car after his long-time career running a Grand Prix team. I am lucky to have met John a number of times, and knew he appreciated the work I had done on Top Gear, so we had a very nice unhurried conversation. Unfortunately, during these tracking shots the heavens opened and driving conditions worsened. I could not put the windscreen wipers on, as this would spoil the spotlit shot, so I continued for about three miles driving a couple of yards away from the camera car, and could not see a thing. John never said a word about the conditions, but he must have wondered what was going on at times!

Not long after this there were all sorts of celebrations, as it was the 25th anniversary of Roger Clark’s and my victory in the RAC Rally of Great Britain. Our winning car had been lovingly restored by enthusiast Tony Yendall, who brought the car up to a forest near Silverstone so Roger and I could be reacquainted with it. It became one of the most popular Top Gear items ever, and is regularly watched on YouTube along with many other of my items (and mistakes!). We charged through the forest as we had all those years before, and it brought back a lot of memories. Roger was experiencing bad health at the time, but still drove in his unique and brilliant way. This was the last time I saw my mate Roger. On the 12th January 1998, he died of a stroke at the cruelly early age of 58 years.

Like Roger, and many other motorsport people, I have been lucky to travel the world, and of course, I have many memories of meeting interesting people. I still travel to spectate on various world rallies, and enjoy the hospitality of Rally Travel Ltd which takes organised spectator tours to major events. David Hutchinson, Neil Prunell, and Jeff Garnett look after me well, although I was a bit concerned to be with Jeff in a taxi in Sofia, Bulgaria one evening when the taxi driver, who had no seat belts in the car, was smoking heavily, speaking on a mobile phone, and watching a film on a TV set on the dashboard all at the same time!

I have had a long association with Philip Young who pioneered the sport of classic rallying and is one of the sport’s great characters – in 1988 he ran the Pirelli Classic Marathon from London to Cortina, and I was lucky to be asked to present an item on the event for a Top Gear special. The year after, Pirelli’s marketing people persuaded big names like Stirling Moss, Paddy Hopkirk, Timo Mäkinen, and Ove Andersson to compete, and also invited Roger Clark and myself. It was a hugely enjoyable event, and we all liked our evenings around Europe. This was really when I got to know Stirling well, and I always remember him asking me which country we were in, for in those pre-Euro days he carried little bags of change, extracted from the electricity meters of flats he owned in London, which were fed by foreign students!

Philip Young organised many more of these rallies, as well as more ambitious marathons around the world. He revived the Peking–Paris event, and invited me to go out and film it, dressing me up in a Chairman Mao uniform and filming me on the Great Wall of China. Philip’s fertile mind also had me riding a bicycle in Moscow’s Red Square and around the Eiffel Tower in Paris before I returned to normality.

Of all the places in the world that I have visited, I think New Zealand is my favourite. The people are friendly, the varied countryside great, and it’s all a bit like it was in Britain thirty years ago. I’ve attended the World Rally Championship event there, but in 2003 was asked if I could arrange for Hannu Mikkola to compete on the classic Otago Rally based in Dunedin on the South Island. A good Escort Mk2 RS1800 would be provided. Oh! And could I co-drive Hannu? This took quite a bit of organising with Roger Oakley and his team out there, but Hannu agreed and we went along. It was exactly thirty years since I had been in a rally car with Hannu, and I remember saying that I hoped we’d have a nice gentle drive as we were now far too old to be crashing. He agreed, but by the end of the first two days we were five minutes in the lead! Eventually we clobbered a very large rock with the nearside rear wheel, as did our friend and team-mate Björn Waldegård from Sweden. We still finished well, and after the rally I enjoyed doing my ‘act’ to a completely new audience at the gala prize presentation. I decided then that I wouldn’t again compete in any rally car anywhere. It had been most enjoyable, but enough is enough. If I had to retire totally, then I might as well do it with the best rally driver in the world. I still see Hannu a lot, so it was not a serious parting, but I felt relieved to have got the rally out of the way, so I put on my tourist hat to wend my way home via the Pacific islands of Fiji, Tahiti, and Tonga. Well, someone’s got to go to these places!