Seven

Back on home territory

The so-called ‘swinging sixties’ were hectic, exciting and enjoyable for me, as they were for most people in their twenties. My years away from home to work in Liverpool and Manchester had widened my circle of friends and provided a bigger world to investigate but most of my activities still centred on the north-western area in which I was born and to which I would return every weekend, if only to depart for some rally in another part of the country.

I exchanged my little red 848cc Mini for my first Mini-Cooper, and eventually a much more powerful Cooper S. I drove the cars incessantly and became more and more proficient at handling the rapid front-wheel drive car, scurrying around the north Lancashire and Lakeland lanes as quickly as possible, mastering the car’s handling on all surfaces. Late at night I would drive over well known bits of road, occasionally coming unstuck by skidding through a hedge, or, on one or more occasions, parking it on its side on a bank. Amazingly severe damage was avoided, although I inflicted damage on myself when I hit a bank, pushing the front corner of the wing onto the tyre. I decided the best way to pull the metalwork off the tyre was to fasten a strong tow rope between the front wing and a sturdy wooden gatepost, or what I thought was a sturdy wooden gatepost! I then put the Cooper S in reverse, revved the engine, and let in the clutch in order to ‘jerk’ the wing off the tyre. Well that was the theory, anyway. What actually happened was that the gatepost broke in half and the bit attached to my rope zoomed up in the air and crashed through my windscreen! On another occasion I became stuck in a snowdrift and had to stay there, sleeping in my car, until a farmer rescued me at six in the morning.

Looking back I must have had a fixation with motorsport and driving. I was reminded of this many years later when I met one or two former girlfriends at the Morecambe Car Club 50th anniversary dinner where I was guest speaker. It was nice to meet them, of course, and brought back happy memories, but they reminded me that my idea of a good night out was to select a pub in the Lake District, the furthest distance from home, then race flat-out to and from it, causing them to feel quite queazy for most of the evening. On return, any amorous intentions of mine disappeared out of the window.

We had quite a good social life and a group of us would regularly meet-up at the Cross Keys in Slyne, the Redwell at Arkholme or the Fenwick Arms in Claughton, all in the countryside north of Lancaster, and we would charge from one pub to the other, usually with a bit of a race to get there before closing time, which was 10.30pm in those days. I still see some of our troupe, particularly Bruce Murgatroyd, Graham and Mary Payne, David Alderson, and Dave Rayner, and we shudder when recalling the various minor incidents that befell us during our travels.

By far the most spectacular of our misdemeanours concerned Frank Shepherd and Ron Turner, who one wet night were returning home in their Mini, no doubt at substantial speed, when it lost grip on a wet narrow lane alongside the Lancaster Canal. The car bounced through a hedge before plunging dramatically into the canal’s murky waters, becoming fully submerged. The hapless pair were extremely lucky and rapidly extricated themselves, leaving the Mini in its watery grave with headlights still blazing and orange indicator lights flashing. They sheepishly walked home, planning to return next morning to sort out matters but during the night were alerted by the Police as they received a call from a somewhat inebriated man, on his way home from the pub on foot, who reported seeing a submarine in the canal!

I became much more involved in Morecambe Car Club and was appointed to the committee, eventually taking on the role of secretary before reaching the dizzy heights of chairman. I started to organise small auto-test meetings, and introduced guest speakers at the monthly meetings at the Midland Hotel, the first being works Triumph rally driver Roy Fidler, who I would get to know very well in later years.

In 1963, while still working in Manchester, I offered to organise Morecambe Car Club’s major rally, the Illuminations, which usually attracted over a hundred entries from all over the north and even further afield. Almost single-handedly organising a 200-mile rally, with all the paperwork involved, as well as contacting the police and other authorities, was a huge assignment, and, looking back, I don’t know how I did it. I had to plot the route in detail using my own knowledge, explore new roads in the Lake District, then to publicise the event and produce the regulations to be sent to prospective entrants.

Even then it was a monumental task to organise a full-night rally (now it is even harder) but I took on this mighty task despite having no car for most of the time, living in far-away Manchester during the week, and having no telephone at my parents’ house where I lived at weekends. I really can’t see how I managed to do it, but I was lucky to have support from various members of the Morecambe Car Club who helped when called upon. It took a good eight months to get everything organised, but when the 30th November came round and I stood in the foyer of the Midland Hotel looking at 100 rally cars parked on the nearby promenade and 200 competitors milling about in the hotel prior to the 10.00pm start, I really did wonder if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. After all, I was still only 22 years of age.

The Illuminations Rally itself was extremely demanding, and possibly a little bit too difficult for some crews, but there were no complaints from competitors and the whole thing went very well with few problems, and a lot of very tired crews arriving back in Morecambe on Sunday morning.

To say I was relieved was an understatement, and I basked in the glory poured upon me by the senior members of the club including the chairman, one Leslie Rigg, the man who introduced me to rallying. I’ve always been something of a worrier and, despite the general euphoria, realised that there was something else to worry about: the rally would be reported in the nationally circulated Motoring News and Autosport magazines. Would they be critical of the event, which was far too demanding in reality? Only two crews managed to get round the route without incurring a ‘fail’ for being more than 30 minutes late. This was practically unheard of.

The following Thursday I scurried off to purchase my copy of Motoring News and held my breath. There was a long report describing the route, detailing everyone’s problems, and congratulating Reg McBride and Don Barrow in their Ford Anglia for winning by losing only 53 minutes of time. Only 53 minutes! Reg and Don later told me that it was one of the hardest ‘thrashes’ they had ever done! And they should know, as they went on to become multiple Motoring News championship winners, and were generally regarded as the best road rally crew of all time, with wins the length and breadth of Britain. The Motoring News report hailed the rally as “A great success and a first-class event with slippery, muddy and treacherous roads galore.”

However, there was another worry on the horizon! The next day would see the respected Autosport magazine on the newspaper stands. I knew that the report would have been written by the much feared Graham Robson, a top class rally navigator with a great rally pedigree, having been competition manager of the Triumph rally team among other things. He knew more about rallying than I would ever know, and being a very forthright person, never minced his words. Not least among my worries was the fact that Graham, navigating Phil Simister’s Ford Cortina GT, had most unusually ‘wrong-slotted’ on the maze of little roads near Staveley, north of Kendal. They lost no less than 17 minutes in time because of this, a rare occurrence for the talented crew.

Incredibly, Graham Robson’s report was very complimentary about my route and referred to my “comprehensive local knowledge and great organisational ability.” He mentioned all the competitors’ unanimous praise for my efforts and said what a good chap I was. Praise, indeed, from the man who went on to become Britain’s most prolific motoring author.

My Illuminations Rally should have taken place in August of that year, but the minister of transport, Ernest Marples, introduced a national speed limit of 50mph on all roads in England and Wales (other than motorways and those with a permanent speed limit) for five peak holiday weekends. The idea was to reduce accidents and the RAC duly imposed a 25mph maximum average speed for rallies, making it impossible to run a competitive road rally. The August Illuminations Rally had, therefore, to be cancelled, but every cloud has a silver lining: I was quoted in a Daily Mail article headed “Marples puts the brakes on Britain’s rally drivers.” It was the first time I had hit the nationals.

Speaking of press reports, I should mention that I was now reporting many events for Motoring News. After competing in an all-night rally I would return home, often not until Sunday afternoon, look at my scribbled notes, and duly write a lengthy report in longhand on foolscap paper. This would then be posted to the Motoring News office in London. Royal Mail was a different animal to the one we now know and don’t love, as there were Sunday collections, and letters would almost certainly be delivered the next day. However, to guarantee my reports reaching London first thing next morning, I came up with a cunning plan, as they say.

A super-safe method of guaranteeing my article arriving at the Motoring News offices in the first post (thus ensuring I got a prominent position in the newspaper) was to put an extra pre-decimal half-penny stamp on the envelope and take it to Lancaster Castle station before 8.00pm. At that precise time the long and brightly lit Royal Mail train would arrive from Glasgow, en route to London, and would stop at the platform in Lancaster for just two minutes whilst post from a local sorting office was hurriedly loaded onto the train. Much more post would previously have been collected in sacks from metal gantries alongside the track by large hooks protruding from the side of the train as it sped by.

I would scurry down the platform and put my envelope, bearing its extra half-penny stamp, in a post box on the side of the train before the great English Electric Diesel engine would roar into life and haul its carriages full of mail-sorting postmen to the south. Looking back, the whole mail-train performance was quite remarkable, very reliable, and ultra-efficient. It was an amazingly advanced system, but it all went wrong one night, the 8th August 1963, when the train was stopped at 3 o’clock in the morning at Sears Crossing between Leighton Buzzard and Cheddington on the Bedfordshire/Buckinghamshire border, and the Great Train Robbery took place. Many people think that this audacious crime was committed purely for the millions of pounds of cash on the train, but it might not have been. There was something else the robbers wanted to get their hands on!

Needless to say, my 2000 word report never arrived at its destination as it had been carted off with the rest of the booty. I still wonder if the robbers knew my finely-crafted words were on board the train, nestling among the many millions of used £5 notes.

I was very annoyed that my hard work had been in vain, and even more annoyed that my payment from Motoring News of £2-17s-6d (£2.87p to you) would never be paid! Some forty years later I passed through Brazil on my way to Rally Argentina and seriously considered calling on fugitive Ronnie Biggs, one of the great train robbers, who happened to live there, to see if he still had my article or, at least, could give me my £2-17s-6d!

In the mid-sixties I knew I had to progress in advertising, and applied to various agencies in London. I was offered a few positions and decided upon a job as media buyer at Napper, Stinton & Woolley, doubling my salary to over £1000 per year. I had mixed feelings about leaving the north, but realised I had to make a move. I resigned as chairman of Morecambe Car Club, said my fond farewells to friends and relatives, and prepared to ‘do a Dick Whittington’ and go to make my fortune in London. Underneath, I felt a little apprehensive, and I tried only to think of the good things that might develop. I still had twinges, and wondered if I was doing the right thing.

For some years I had been rallying with Bob Lamb, an appropriately-named local butcher who owned a number of shops in Lancaster and had a successful business supplying hotels and restaurants in Morecambe and the Lake District. Very occasionally I would help Bob out on a Saturday so he could be sure to get away to rallies in which we were competing, and I knew quite a lot about his business.

I would often take deliveries in one of his vans, and remember an incident in a minivan in which I was transporting large trays of that peculiar northern delicacy, tripe. For those not familiar with such products, tripe is the lining of a cow’s stomach, and has a very slippery consistency. I was hurrying, of course, and worrying about being late for our rally so no doubt going quicker than I should have been. Suddenly the traffic lights changed and I slammed on the brakes of the little minivan. There was an enormous clatter, and the tin trays of tripe slid forward on the shiny wooden floor of the back of the van, ramming into the rear of the front seats. The slimy white tripe was ejected from the tin trays and flew in the air. Bits of it hit my head and dangled from my ears, other bits dangled from the interior driving mirror, and half a hundredweight of the stuff descended into the footwell, most of it wrapped around the foot pedals and my feet! It was a real mess.

I didn’t report this little incident to Bob, as he would have insisted on destroying or at least rewashing the tripe, which would have delayed our departure for the rally. I hastily scooped up the slippery tripe and attempted to refill the various tin trays, wiping off as much dust and fluff as I could, hoping no-one would notice.

Whilst on the subject of Bob’s minivan, I should mention that he and I actually competed on an evening rally in it. Yes, really! We were due to compete in his Sunbeam Rapier, but it was in the local Pye Motors’ garage being prepared for a bigger event, so we took the minivan and actually won. He had thoughtfully removed the tin trays and sausages that, one hour before, had been dangling from hooks in the back.

Bob Lamb and another successful butcher had decided to expand their businesses by investigating the then unheard-of market of pre-packed meat. They even considered producing pre-packed cooked dishes like cottage pie and other similar items. Out of the blue, Bob asked me if I would like to join his company to develop this exciting new market which could, of course, lead to much greater things. This was a great dilemma for me and I didn’t know what to say. I thought about the pros and cons for a couple of days and solicited the views of one or two friends, and eventually decided to take a risk and get involved in the new project. I then wrote a letter to the London advertising agency to say I wasn’t joining them, and felt a great weight being lifted from my shoulders. I will never know whether I did the right thing or not but often wonder what might have been. I think about it often as a walk down a supermarket aisle looking at all the thousands of ready meals now on display! In fact, it was quite a struggle to establish our products and to gain distribution, although I persevered for a few years. In my heart of hearts I probably realised it had not been a great career move, and had probably been influenced by the fact that I could continue rallying. But this, of course, would lead to greater things eventually.

As a navigator I was quite successful, and had certainly built up a great knowledge of the northern roads, so I began to move away from the area more and more, concentrating on Motoring News events, mostly in Wales. Odd trips to Scotland, Derbyshire, and even Devon were included in my itinerary. I was regularly asked to navigate for Bill Willicombe, Bob Lamb, and Roy Mapple, with occasional rides with other north-western drivers including Tony Payne, Roy Kirkham, Leo Jemson, Bobby Parkes, Colin Briars, Les Cowan and his son David, a remarkably quick driver aged just 17. We had successes galore, and my collection of silverware started to increase. My outings further afield included trips with Frank Grange of the famed Cavendish Car Club, mentioned earlier, and other drivers including Chris Knowles-Fitton, Mike Bowyer, John Francis, Norman Harvey, David Friswell, Bobby Parkes and George Beever.

Considering the number of rallies in which I was competing I escaped relatively unscathed in terms of incidents. Obviously there were the odd off-road excursions incurring body-panel damage and occasional bruises and scratches. Gated roads were used a great deal in those days and I was a master gate-opener. I practised opening gates quickly, and on rallies would be assisted by my drivers who would tell me which side of the gate had the handle and which way it opened.

On more than one occasion I slipped and fell into deep Lakeland ditches full of water, once managed to catch the back bumper of a Sunbeam Rapier as I slammed a gate shut (thus holding up all following competitors, much to their chagrin), and on another occasion closed a metal gate in front of a heavily braking Ford Anglia that was following us as the leading car. As the Anglia stopped, all four of its spotlights protruded through the spaces between the bars of the gate. The car then settled back on its suspension and the driver realised it could go neither forwards or backwards. I won this rally by thirteen minutes, but didn’t stay around at the finish as I do not think I would have been very popular.

During the very early seventies the M6 motorway was extended north from Carnforth to Penrith, and the route cut through our prime rallying country. This presented extra problems for navigators who, if they had any sense, would traverse the area on a Saturday afternoon and makes notes on their maps before nightfall as small lanes would suddenly disappear in a sea of mud before continuing on the other side of the motorway foundations, prior to a bridge being built. On occasions new bridges would have been built and we would use them, although I remember flying across a newly built bridge with David Cowan in his Mini-Cooper only to find there was a three-foot drop at the other side. It was like a scene from The Italian Job as we flew gracefully through the air.

Competing with Tony Payne in his Hillman Imp one night we had a similar incident when we had to cross a dual carriageway that was being constructed near Kendal. The levels of the two carriageways differed considerably, and we drove onto the grass in between the two to discover a practically vertical five-foot drop down which we slithered in the darkness. We survived to go on and win the event, the Garstang Rally, despite our little drama.

I was involved in a much more spectacular crash one night whilst navigating for Mike Bowyer in his Ford Cortina on a Welsh Motoring News Rally. As ever, the steep and narrow lanes were covered in wet leaves and mud, which was not the perfect surface for road adhesion. At high speed Mike ‘lost’ the Cortina, and the rear end slid into a bank, propelling us towards the opposite bank which pitched us into the air, rolling several times. There was a lot of noise, broken glass everywhere, and the roof of the car was flattened as the car rolled over and over. More importantly for me, my precious Ordnance Survey map had fallen from my hands and was dragged along the road, shredding it.

It is a strange thing but, as anyone who has been involved in any similar incident will tell you, everything goes into slow motion as the accident develops. I saw the roof come down and lowered myself slightly in the seat as the car slid down the steep hill, upside down. Suddenly there were no more noises of metal scraping on the tarmac, and Mike and I struggled out of the car. It was dark and we had lost all the lights and couldn’t even find a torch. However, a following rally car soon appeared and the combined efforts of this crew and other following crews manhandled the remains of our Cortina to a wider bit of road. These following crews then ensured we were not injured before going on their merry way. I cannot remember what happened next, but a breakdown truck eventually appeared, and we were transported to the midnight petrol halt of the rally where we made phone calls galore. Remember, there were no mobile phones in those far-off times.

A more amusing incident occurred in another Welsh lane during the hours of darkness. Among the most popular cars in rallying in the sixties were Mini-Coopers, as they were nimble, speedy and small, and felt really at home in narrow lanes. One of the best Mini drivers was Roy Mapple, who hailed from the Blackpool area. He was a very quick and talented driver and experienced few major incidents, but miscalculated a tightening right-hand bend and understeered into a narrow ditch. I was navigating for Bob Lamb in another Mini-Cooper S and came upon the ditched Mini with Roy and navigator Jeff Smith trying to lift the car out. We stopped and Bob joined the other two, whilst I had the bright idea of warning following cars who would soon be arriving at the blind bend. I therefore opened the driver’s door of the beached Mini and stood on the door sill, pointing the movable roof light towards the entrance of the bend, assuming this would slow the cars down. Within seconds, yet another Mini screamed into the corner; the driver, Cec Offley, braked heavily and put the car into a spin, the rear of his car coming perilously close to clobbering the Mapple Mini. In fact, he was only inches from it; so close that the rear bumper of Offley’s Mini literally ripped the back off my shoes as I stood on the door sill. I was half an inch away from serious injury. The other participants in this drama, Mapple, Smith and Lamb, ran in all directions, but the excitement wasn’t over yet, for Offley’s Mini then hit the open door of Mapple’s orange Mini, and said door shot into the air literally flying over the top of the rapidly retreating Bob Lamb. Mapple eventually collected the door and threw it on the back seat of the Mini-Cooper, then drove for the rest of the night with the crew very nearly freezing to death. Looking back, it is one of the most hilarious rally incidents I’ve ever been involved in, but could have been considerably worse for all concerned.

Road rallying was accepted by most country dwellers, and they were all aware of the passage of any event as clubs meticulously carried out PR work beforehand. Most farmers were amenable to up to 120 cars passing along tracks over their land and, occasionally, driving between the buildings in their farmyards. This was not the case on the Coventry-based Godiva Rally in the early sixties, when a farmer took a great dislike to a number of cars that ‘wrong slotted’ into his Welsh farmyard instead of joining a nearby muddy track. I remember it well, as I was navigating for John Francis of Cheltenham in his 1071cc Cooper S, a car in which we had recently won the Hunter’s Moon Rally in Gloucestershire.

As we entered the yard we saw one or two people hovering about and a closed gate ahead of us. I was about to disembark to open the gate when a very irate farmer in a brown smock ran towards me and hit my half-open door with a long-handled woodman’s axe. I could see the metal glinting as it sliced through the door, only inches from my knee. “Turn around!” I shouted to John, who executed a speedy reverse spin to exit from whence we came. To our horror we saw that the exit gate had been shut by various members of the mad farmer’s family, who started to attack us by throwing a huge bucket of dirty water at our screen, followed by the mad axe-man lopping off one of our spotlights!

Amazingly, for no apparent reason the assembled gathering realised they had had their fun with us so opened the gate to let us out and wait, presumably, for another victim to appear.

There was great camaraderie between competitors in these evening and night rallies, and all participants were amateurs and remarkably good sports who would help each other if required. The drivers would always lend parts or tools to other drivers, if necessary, but the navigators tended to be more guarded about passing information to their rivals and would jealously protect their maps, seldom letting other navigators have sight of them, as they contained valuable information about the state of roads and tracks.

There was one great exception to the above. One of the very best northern navigators, Bob Redhead from Barrow-in-Furness and I became close personal friends, and our friendship extended to comparing the routes we had plotted on our maps before the start of each event. We would each have our own bits of local knowledge and willingly impart this to the other party. Bob and I were considered by other competitors as bitter rivals, and they were right, for when the rally started we would fight for supremacy in a fair but competitive way. It has to be said, however, that much of the silverware went in our direction.

Bob and I joined forces to organise the Illuminations Rally for a number of years, and were proud to elevate it to the status of one of Britain’s best rallies, becoming a part of the Motoring News championship and winning the coveted Ecurie Cod Fillet trophy a few years later, when Fred Bent and Stephen Bye were at the helm.