Bob and Linda Kemp volunteered again this year to organise a planned drive around the Leicestershie/Staffordshire border. This follows the very successful event last year where we were blessed with excellent weather. As Sunday dawned it was obvious that Bob had worked his magic on the weather again. This year, my wife Ruth was already committed to playing the music in our local church so I had contacted Mike Page to see if he could do the event with me as navigator, and the deal was struck.
Mike duly turned up to collect me in his 100/4 with the offer that I drive to the venue. Having never driven one before I accepted to find that they are very different from a slightly tuned 3000 MKI. It took a couple of hundred yards and two give-ways to get the hang of the heavy clutch and the low revving engine with bucket fulls of torque before we were soon thundering past the rather slow Sunday traffic. The car felt lighter and the chassis more nimble than my BN7, even with its aluminium head; altogether stiffer and more solid. The low range acceleration from the engine was quite amazing, however, it seemed to run out of steam as we got faster just as the 3000 would be coming on song and still have some gears to play with. As I say quite different cars, each with their own charm.
And so, after a blast down the excellent A444 past Twycross Zoo, we arrived at the Appleby Inn rendezvous to find most people already there and Bob a little worried that sufficient people would turn up. In all, following two cancellations we made eight crews. Charles and Margaret had put many of us to shame by coming all the way from Holmfirth near Huddersfield in their rather splendid 3000 BT7. Bob had prepared some neatly bound road books based on the tulip system of diagrams. The day was to be split into two circuits, the morning one taking us across the border into Staffordshire and the afternoon route taking us into Leicestershire and some quaint sounding place names. The half way point was Bob's photographic studio for lunch where Linda, having been advised of numbers over the mobile, had whizzed round the supermarket and assembled a buffet lunch.
Bob Kemp baffles all with the instructions.
The organising team of Bob, Brian and Alan.
The first half was based on photographs. 12 photos taken at random points around the route had to be identified and marked with the relevant reference from the road book. Considering that Bob is a professional photographer, the images weren't too bad either. Anxious to get things moving and relocate a few sign posts before the others reached them, Mike and I set off in the lead only to "wrong-slot" after about 5 miles. My fault , but it was 4 miles to the next tulip and until we had travelled it we could not be sure that we had gone the wrong way. By the time we had retraced our steps we were about half way down the field. Still, it was a nice sunny day, the back roads were relatively clear and Mike was clearly enjoying the driving without much thought for spotting the clues and we soon clawed our way up the leader board. Pity it wasn't a time trial. Surprisingly, we had managed to locate 11 of the photographs, only the canal bridge escaped us and I am sure that Bob was not sitting in his car when he took that one.
The lunch stop quickly re-established the correct blood-sugar levels and provided the opportunity to socialize a bit. Co-organisers Alan Twitchett and Brian Wheeler (that well known purveyor of Sprite panels) had a the feely-bag test waiting for us. I would have expected tin snips, rotor arms and frogeye boot hinges (I know Brian!) so was a bit phased by the likes of a garlic press, a memory stick and a solder sucker. A further test was to name the make, model and year of a series of cropped photos of cars. They all turned out to be Healeys but included the likes of the Fiesta and the Innocenti Sprites.
Linda serving up lunch
Round two got underway with a list of cryptic clues to pub names, sign boards and place names. The clues being in no particular order, it was a bit of a memory game. As we sped through Barton in the Beans the clue "you might prefer them baked" seemed to fit; Gongerstone seemed to have some connection with eels and the home for strange folk just had to be The Odd House (quite fitting for Leicestershire). By the time that we crossed the finishing line we had found sufficient to score 9 out of a possible 15.
All the scores totted up, Mike and I were somewhat amazed to find ourselves the winners. The booby prize for the lowest score went to our regular supporter Jason Hunt with his daughter Laura in the other 100/4. Thanks were expressed to all for coming and especially to Bob, Linda, Alan and Brian for organising another excellent event. All that remained was for me to explain to Ruth how Mike and I had won yet of all the treasure hunts that we have done together we have never won anything. I obviously don't drive fast enough.
Robin Astle.
The 100/4s with Jason & Laura, and Mike Page.
The winners, Mike Page & myself, and the booby prize for Jason and Laura Hunt.