Norman Rally

15th July 1983 - Hasting and Rother District MCC

It was a fine sunny day when club mate Adolf and I went off to the field just outside Hastings the organisers always used. There was a surprise this year, as they had actually shelled out and hired a marquee! To keep their scaffolder in business, they had constructed a stage, (strangely, some distance from the aforementioned marquee), we assumed for the group on Saturday. I say 'assumed' because we would be leaving here on the Saturday and heading off to the East Essex rally which was unfortunately on the same weekend. This is the only time I have done this, usually preferring to stay in one place for the weekend.

Also available this year were retrospective year bars for the first and second rallies. The first originally only had a vehicle sticker and the second had a 'button' badge, which didn't really look the part. The enamel badge only arrived at the third rally, but now we had a complete record.

The food this year was provided by one of the establishment that used an old bus for the kitchen and seating, which wasn't really needed as the weather outside was fine.

The only notable occurrence of the night was when we were 'invaded' by a few members from another local club who drove around the field with only helmets and boots on, before driving off again. This caused one marshal to complain for the rest of the night because "they weren't wearing sufficient protective gear".

As we were only staying the one night, and it was quite warm, Adolf couldn't be bothered to put up his tent and just threw the flysheet over his bike and slept under that. Mine was a simpler affair, so I just put it up as normal. This meant I had more work to do when we left in the morning, which is one more reason I don't like moving. We were lucky because the weather on Saturday was still warm and sunny, which made the trip north easier.

- Phil (the Spill) Drackley