Sheep Naggers Rally

26th November 1982 - Shatterford MCC

I was surprised when I arrived at the venue, I had never been to a rally which appeared to be held on a ship. As it turns out, it was just a pub and the rally was being held in the basement, although we were allowed in the above-ground building as long as we bought a meal. I believe the pub was known as the Nautical William even if that was not its name, due to its appearance and was used by the organisers as their meeting place.

This was not a rally for you if you are even slightly claustrophobic, as the room with the disco in was quite small and windowless. There was a little bit of space for the toilets and bar, (not the same space, obviously).

Due to the environment, we were all quite warm and sweaty when we came out into the freezing midnight air. Luckily there was a bonfire so we could get aired out before retiring to our tents.

When I woke up on Saturday there was a severe frost on the field outside. This, however, cleared up quite quickly and the day progressed normally with silly games including egg throwing and such took place.

During the day, the same massively-engined combo turned up that had been at the Bollards Bash three weeks ago, which had many people studying it and scratching their heads.

Before we wandered down to the basement in the evening, there was one poor sod who was a first-timer and he was debagged and strung up by his feet from a tree next to the car park. I suspect (hope) that he wasn't left there for too long.

We boogied on down, underground until late, then sat at the bonfire for a bit.

Crawling back to the tent, I noticed that most of the bikes, especially mine, had a thick layer of ice on them. Although this mostly melted in the course of the morning, it still needed a wipe down to prevent an even worse case of wet/cold bum than I am prepared to put up with on the trip home.

- Phil (the Spill) Drackley