(I have no photos of me with John Morley. If you or anyone you know has some, please let me know!) Here's John in his TR7 - but not with me! Thanks to Chris Rae.)
Now that we’re up to date with Mull,
let’s get back to the 1984 Motoring News Championship… or not…
Mike Kidd and I felt like we’d got
used to each other and were becoming a team, while I was still working as an
estate agent and surveyor in Clitheroe.
The firm I worked for, Duckworths, had merged with the larger Entwistle
Green Ltd in 1983, and I’d become a director.
I had to put in a lot more time at work and didn’t feel it was fair to
just do the occasional event with Mike.
Even worse (!) later in 1984 the board decided to allow me to buy shares
from the more senior ones. When I say I
was allowed, there wasn’t really a choice!
I had to find £5,000, a lot of money in 1984. It meant putting the future and the family
first, and rallying second. Heaven knows
what it would fetch now, but back then I sold that beautiful car just after
Mull for £4,500, and temporarily retired from driving (apart from Mull of
course, where we managed to make alternative arrangements!)
I hadn’t given up rallying of course, and
already things had begun to take a different turn. In 1983 I’d helped with servicing for John
(‘Chocolate’) Morley on the Ulster International Rally, when John Meadows was
his co-driver in an Escort RS2000. That
was the first time I’d visited Northern Ireland and the early 80’s were still
in the midst of the troubles, so I wasn’t thrilled to find that we were staying
at the Europa Hotel in Belfast (it had been bombed more than once). Chocolate was always very careful with money,
so he only booked one room for driver and co-driver (who had beds) and service
crew (floor).
I was woken around 6.30 by a huge
bang. Fearing the worst I jumped up off
the floor, rushed to the window and looked out, to see a dark sky and another
flash of lightning which preceded the next clap of thunder... Phew! From the rally start, we (the service crew)
set off in front of Chocolate and headed for the roundabout where the Belfast
road joined the motorway, to ensure that the car made it safely thus far. Whilst we were waiting, a lorry carrying a
full load of Coca-cola came past; we
gave the driver the thumbs up and he screeched to a halt. “Are yuze boys part
of the raally?” he shouted: we told him
we were servicing. “Hold on,” and he went to the back, pulled out a crate of 24
cans of Coke and after handing them to us with a grin and a “Good luck boys!”
he was gone. I decided that – despite
the troubles, I rather liked Ireland, especially the vast majority of its
inhabitants.
Sadly, the first day ended in
retirement. I remember how beautiful the
Antrim coast was, and the villages of Cushendun and Cushendall, with their
names reminding me of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, but on one of the moorland
sections south of Ballycastle the two Johns had flown over a crest thinking it
was straight, only to be caught out when the road went square right. Although not badly damaged, the car couldn’t
continue – to be fair they didn’t just go off – they almost ended up in another
country! I think the car was as far off
the road as any I’ve ever seen. As
service crew we had to wait until the road was open to the public again, and
finally we reached the stricken hapless crew to get them back home again.
Co-driver John told us that the Course
Closing car had been through about ten minutes before we got there. It stopped, and the navigator, a ‘big fella’,
got out, whistled dolefully, then shouted “Are yous two okay?” and when they
confirmed that all was well he shouted again, just to co-driver John this time,
saying “Will ye be need’n a clean pair of underpants?”
Nothing happened in 84 until around
November, when Chocolate rang and asked me if I’d like to do the National
Breakdown Rally (formerly the Mintex
International) with him in February 85: after a year doing the Astra Challenge
with John Morton, John had agreed to co-drive for Cyril Bolton – we’d be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Michele
Mouton, Per Eklund, Pentti Airikkala and Jimmy McRae (with Ian Grindrod). I thought it would be great fun (even though I had to shell out for an
expensive International Licence!) and agreed.
Chocolate was preparing a new car – a VW Golf GTI – and would be in
touch nearer the time.
Which he was. About two weeks before the rally he rang to
say the car wouldn’t be ready so he was going to withdraw his entry. During the conversation I managed to talk him
round and he agreed – with the service crew boys – to burn some midnight oil
and get the car finished. I agreed to lend a hand too. So at the end of February off we set for…
Bradford (there’s no International Rally nearer!). Once the scrutineering and other formalities
were done, there wasn’t much else to do before the start, so I went to the
nearby IMAX cinema and watched a film on the space shuttle. I knew several of the crews (many of them
quite local) including Dave Metcalfe/Phil Sandham, Ian Holt/Peter Bland and
John Morton/Norman Jackson.
The rally itself used all the classic
Yorkshire forests – Cropton, Pickering, Ryedale, and the devilish 27-miler in
Dalby. All went well through the night
and the first half of the next day until – in Ryedale I think – we had a heavy
landing and a rear shock-absorber punched its way through the bodywork into the
rear of the car. Which, with no way of
carrying out a reasonable repair, meant curtains and a drive home, frustrated
and disappointed.
A long rallying drought followed,
until July – five months! I may have
done the odd night event but if I did, I don’t think I’ve a record of it
anywhere. It’s when I start writing
something like this that I regret all the things I must have thrown away or
simply lost. Of course, without a huge
house or a small warehouse you simply can’t keep everything – perhaps it would
have been better to write all this down years ago. Still, better late than never.
Now it was my chance to do the Ulster
Rally with Chocolate. A tarmac, pace
note rally. We didn’t have time to make
notes so we bought a set (£30 I think, from Fred Gallagher). Sad to say (in one sense) I think it must
have been quite an uneventful rally, as there’s not much that I remember
distinctly. Although I do remember that
on this, and the other events we did, people would come up to John – people who
knew him, people who didn’t – and ask how things were going. John would almost always say something like
“It’s going OK, but I must be the only driver on this event whose co-driver can
drive a bloody sight faster than I can!”
It was embarrassing at times, but then, there are worse ways to be embarrassed!
And that tells the story of how we
finished, really – 4th in class, 47th o/a. Not too bad for a VW Golf but not breaking
any records either. And I was enjoying
myself.
Prizegiving took place in the Europa
Hotel (which was handy as we were staying there) hosted by the TV sports commentator
Steve Rider. John bought a round of
drinks (which back then cost under £10), gave the barman a £20 note, and got
change for a tenner. He quickly queried
the barman and said “I gave you a £20 note.”
The barman said it was only £10.
John pressed the point. The
barman replied “It can’t have been a £20, there are no £20s in the till,” to
which John replied “I can believe that, because I saw you put it in your
pocket.” The barman made a pretence of
going to the till and came back with the £10… John was not amused and to be
honest I’m surprised he didn’t report the barman to the management or the
police.
Which reminds me of another true story
– Mull, 1971. It was the Sunday
afternoon after the rally and seven or eight ‘blokes’ had decided to have a
‘session’ in the Western Isles Hotel, at that time owned and run by Mr &
Mrs Forrester. You could tell that Mrs
Forrester wasn’t completely at ease with so many ‘ruffians’ descending on her
landmark hotel for the rally, and was much happier with the mostly genteel folk
who stayed there on the other 51 weeks of the year, but business was
business. By the way, this story is only
funny if (a) you’re over 60 or (b) you get into the mindset of the time. To start with, petrol was about 30p per gallon – or about £0.06p per
litre. Many, and I mean many, people
would put £1’s worth of petrol in the car almost every time they filled up – it
was over three gallons. And secondly, beer was about £0.11p or £0.12p a pint.
I’m not kidding. Four or five pints for ten shillings (50p!) The UK went decimal on 15 February 1971 and
there followed (no connection) a long period of serious inflation. So if you’ve got the general price structure
in your head, and you understand that a lot of people used to buy petrol in
‘poundsworths’… OK, back to the
story. A not insignificant amount of
beer had been drunk, and everyone’s glass was getting empty. Heads turned to Norman and the consensus was
that it was now Norman’s round. Reluctantly,
he made his way to the bar – rather too carefully, for he’d already imbibed one
or two – where our hostess was standing, arms folded in a slightly disapproving
manner. “Er, hmm... ... a poundsworth of beer
please Mrs Forrester!” The whole room
collapsed in tears. If you’ve just
laughed, you’re getting old…
Next up was the Manx International -
almost a home event for Chocolate as his parents lived at Kirk Michael on the
west coast of the island. And of course
this meant that our accommodation was free, so John, being careful money-wise,
was very happy. As I recall we had time
to make our own pace notes on this event, which took place in September, and
the weather was pretty good.
Michele Mouton and Fabrizia Pons
headed the entry list, while Russell Brookes/Mike Broad and Jimmy McRae with
our very own Ian Grindrod were to have an epic battle to decide the British
Championship (eventually decided in Brookes’s favour after Jimmy suffered one
mechanical problem after another but still finished second). Meanwhile we had an enjoyable and
workmanlike, if not that memorable, rally, starting at no 108 and finishing 30th
overall and 2nd in class – not too bad, despite the fact that
Chocolate was still telling everybody that he couldn’t drive as quickly as his
co-driver!
Most, if not all, service points were
at the TT Grandstand area in Douglas. At
one halt we had a problem with the suspension which needed urgent attention,
and time was of the essence. As luck (or
Sod’s Law) would have it, the local radio reporter decided to interview us as
we left the time control in, sticking his head and his microphone through my
window just as we were setting off into the service area. John, on a mission, ignored him and off we
went! The reporter quickly withdrew his
head but apparently we drove over his microphone wire and caused a ‘rope burn’
on his hand, and he complained to the organisers. At the end of that day we were summoned to
the Clerk of the Course to explain ourselves, which we did at the same time as
eating humble pie, a little too obsequiously, I thought, but we got away with
it.
When we got back home I was summoned
to a meeting with Entwistle Green’s managing director. Fifteen months earlier I’d parted with the
rejuvenated KKC 733P to raise £5,000 to buy shares in the company. Now I had no choice but to sell them again as
the business had been sold to Lloyds Bank (remember Black Horse Agencies?). I got £13,500 for my shares, an excellent
return, admittedly – and I’d be able to
buy another car – but it would never be quite the same. Or so I thought. As it turned out, the following year I
managed to acquire another thoroughly excellent Escort MkII.
The following year Chocolate and I
would take part in another three internationals in a new car – the ex-Brian Wiggins Group N (standard car) Astra GTE – the National Breakdown, which we
finished this time (although without a spectacular result); followed by two events I’d always wanted to
do - the Rothmans Circuit of Ireland and the Lombard RAC Rally of Great
Britain. Between them they’ll take up
another chapter – the Circuit of Ireland was a quite amazing experience.
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