Roger Halfyard's Bash

At a farm in Kent August 1978

Like most good events this one was invitation only; hardcore rally goers to the man. The venue's exact location I have forgotten but I believe the farm was owned by some relative of Julie, Roger's wife. I travelled over with Sonja on Thursday and stopped the night at Roger's home in West Kingsdown.

Friday morning we got ourselves down to the farm and pitched the tents. Roger still had some provisions to get so he shot off in a van, returning about two hours later with the axles bending. When the doors were opened the van was stacked with slabs of beer which was off loaded into a tent. I noticed a slab of Samuel Smiths bitter and said to Roger "Put my name on that one" to which the reply was "Well you better have it away now as that's the only one" So I had it and a slab of lager for Sonja.

The weather was cracking the rocks as we just lazed around. A steady stream of people kept arriving, Paul Mullis, Heather MacGregor, Steve Cawthorne, Phil Guy, John and Fred Flitney, Helmut Shenkel, Brighton Bob, Keith Arthurs, Kelvin Clouting, Del Cooper and many more. Friday night we all gathered at the local pub for a couple of hours steady drinking.

Saturday was much in the same pattern with more people arriving as we spent the day talking with friends sat outside the pub sunning ourselves. Back in those days the pubs used to shut at 2.30 so it was back to the farm for fun and games. Someone had a small bike towing a tyre around the orchard with some of the less oiled throng trying to balance on it. We didn't venture back to the pub in the evening. It was just a bit too far to walk, about 3 miles, and besides which we had our own beer supply, a pleasant summer evening just chatting, no disco or heavy metal band and no camp fire.

Sunday morning everyone packed up and went on their way. We still had a few hours to kill before catching the ferry back to the continent so we all went with Roger to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, about 10 of us. Rather than all having seperate bills Roger took the lead and ordered boat loads of food, a just-help-yourself buffet and we split the bill between the men.

A large informal gathering, I would like to have gone to more of this type of event.













- Les Hobbs


Start of quotation I did see recently the picture with everyone drinking outside the pub with everyones name identified. Someone had it on Facebook, might have been Heather.

Anyway I was there with my girlfriend Jenny and I know Carl Hulme was there. End of quotation

- Nigel Sisson