the mendip rally

CHAPTER 43

The Mendip Rally

1985

( Photo 1) . My Mendip Rally Badge, 1985, all the Mendip rally badges had the same image of a jolly farmer, just different colours for different years.

The Mendip rally or Who needs ketamine ( when you have scrumpy ).

18-20/10/1985

Just another ordinary rally, it was somewhere in the Cotswold’s in the west country in England, nothing exceptional happened except for Brian thinking he was fire proof again, and standing in the middle of a large bonfire, he was jumping in and out of the fire only stopping after the bottom of his jeans started to catch fire, this was a common sight at rallies, the main participants in this pastime were Brian and Wobble, it usually ended up with one or both of them catching fire at some point in the alcohol fueled madness.

The bonfire was directly in between the beer tent / disco and a wooden hut, not to close that the flames could damage or set fire to the marquee, and the hut, but close enough to light up both with the high flames that poured out of the fire in an ever constant stream.

In the wooden hut were a group of cavers / potholers who had booked the sleeping quarters of the large hut for the weekend, we called them Hobbits, it was a running joke throughout the rally weekend, well if you think about it, Hobbits do spend a lot of time willingly hanging around holes in the ground.

We were being watched by a number of unhappy hobbit faces pressed up against the windows of the hut.

This behavior of fire jumping was constantly observed by the Hobbits, who had locked themselves away in their sleeping quarters, we could just see their heads in the windows, they were trying their hardest to get some sleep, laying in their beds watching us.

Brian decided to top the bonfire up with some more wood, so he searched around for more fuel, he found various pieces of wood lying around the area near the hut.

Brian's search eventually found some wood, he picked up a rough looking wooded type cross, which was pushed into the ground, making it look like there was a grave there, the cross was a little away from the fire, it was just too tempting for him, so he pulled it out of the ground, only for a Hobbit who had been watching Brains every move from behind his personnel window, to shout over the roar of the bonfire.

“ THAT CROSS MEANS A LOT TO US, AND A LOT TOO OTHER PEOPLE “.

I was not sure what that statement meant, but I think the hobbit just needed to say something, they had been silent up till then.

I said to Brian” Bri, you better put it back before he starts to cry and start calling out to Gandalf “. Brian, reluctantly replaced it back where he found it.

To me the wooden cross looked like a marker for some type of building work, we weren’t sure why it was there, so to be on the safe side, and not to deliberately annoy our stressed observers, we left the wooden cross alone for a little while, and then a little later we went back to the fire after we had been to the beer tent, and picked up the spare wood around the bonfire including the wooden cross and burnt it, when hobbits were not looking, we did not want to wind the Hobbits up too much, they were not very happy bunnies, and anyway we had already burnt all the other crosses earlier.

( Photo 2 ) . Brian's fire walking at the front, with two unidentified English fire disciple’s, following in his footsteps. ( yes, if you look closer there are two people behind him ).

Later in the evening, we were all sitting in the wooden hut drinking and listening to the music, and then suddenly Big Roy being very pissed again, and for no apparent reason tried to shoot me in the face with a small pistol to make some point.

Myself and Wobble were talking about the pop band ( dire straight’s ) new music video “ money for nothing “ and being amazed how fast computer technology was progressing at the time, we were impressed by the cartoony graphics, ok compared to today’s standards of animation they are crap, but back then we were amazed by how fast technology was moving.

Roy not understanding the any [part of the conversation decided to change the subject by trying to shoot me in the face.

a bit dramatic.

but it worked.

He couldn’t remember why he did it in the morning, this was the kind of thing that we expected Roy to do, he always did some real random violent stuff back then, it was what Roy did, so we thought nothing off it, it was just Roy being Roy.

Well, he missed anyway.

but he did manage to give me temporary blindness in my right eye for 3 hours from the pistol muzzle flash.

He leveled the pistol up to my face, I had enough presences of mind to knock his hand to one side, and move my head away, after he fired the pistol.

After he discharged the weapon, he just put the weapon away back under his jacket, and we carried on drinking, this kind of behavior was normal.

so we paid it no mind, and carried on with enjoying the weekend, I think the music was so loud nobody noticed a gun going off.

There was another gun incident at another rally that we attended, not the Mendip rally, totally unrelated to the previous one mentioned.

I can not remember what rally it was, but we were all sitting around a long table in a pub chatting with other bikers who we had meet at the rally.

One of our new acquaintances mentioned that he had bought a pistol the night before, and had brought it with him to the rally, and asked anyone if they knew about hand guns.

I said “ I’ll take a look at it for you “, most of my friends that I grew up with, have all had experience with all kinds of weapons, everyone where we come from had some kind of knowledge, the areas around welsh villages are surrounded by forests and uninhabited upland mountains areas which was our play ground, knives and guns were part of our everyday life.

So this guy had the pistol on him tucked under his leather jacket, he took it out and handed it to me.

On inspection it was a small caliber revolver, it looked quite old and not been oiled or maintained for sometime.

The pistol was not rusty, but it did look as if it had been sitting in a box or a drawer for a long while.

I took a quick look and I said “ I’ll let Brian have a look at this, he knows more about revolvers then I do “.

Brian was sitting almost opposite me on the same table, so I reached over the table and in plain sight of everyone in the pub I handed the pistol over to him.

Nowadays if I had done that kind of thing in a public place the S.A.S would be firing C.S. gas into the pub, and little red dots would be bouncing around over our chests in minutes.

Brian started to check the weapon over, and he said loud enough for everyone to hear “ whoa, there’s a live round loaded into the chamber “.

The English biker that had brought the pistol to the rally went white as a sheet.

He said “ I let my little sister play with it before I came to the rally, she was pointing it at me, but she was not strong enough to pull the trigger “.

Back to the Mendips

When we were sitting by the bonfire some other bikers were also enjoying the warmth from the fire, and quietly drinking the night away, Wobble was busy helping a Somerset biker drink his locally made rough scrumpy cider.

Wobble drank two thirds of the five liter / gallon plastic firkin bottle, the other biker was drinking what was left of the rest of the scrumpy cider.

The somerset biker was comatose after he drank one third of the firkin, he may well have been on his second scrumpy container, we could see the remnants of plastic containers melting on the edge of the bonfire.

Wobble had a super human ability of not ever getting a hangover, I have seen him drink a shed full of beer / cider and in the morning he has no after affects whatsoever.

I think he should donate his body to science because it’s not natural, and very unfair to people like myself who wish the world would come to an end the morning after.

I did suggest this idea to him, about donating his body, he said he would think about it, but he would wait until he snuffed it first.

I replied to his answer “ that was very selfish of you while people suffered around you “ he said “ yeah, its good init “ and laughed.

We were sitting quite close the fire.

The Somerset biker was even closer, he was laying so close to the bonfire with his legs out stretched towards the flames, there was no way this guy was going to wake up on his own.

So we had to pull him away from the fire.

His boots were smoldering from the heat of the fire, and had started to smoke, we could smell the burning rubber of the soles of his boots, he didn’t feel a thing, he was so out of it.

so we dragged him away from the fire, by pulling him by his arms along the ground and dropped him in the cool damp grass a few feet away.

( Photo 3 ) . A plastic firkin container similar to this one that the scrumpy cider was kept in, if you want to experience the hangover from hell drink this stuff.

We had a kind of routine at rally’s.

We would arrive at the rally site and pick our spot that suited us, then pitch our tents, when everything was sorted, and everyone was finished settling in, we would have a wander around the camp site, and catch up with everyone.

Many bikers from all over the country would go to the same rally’s every year, so we would say hi to the ones we knew.

Depending on what time we would get there, We would go for a ride to have a look at the local town / village and countryside, most times this would happen on the Saturday morning before the evening games started.

Most of us were all working on the Friday, so we didn’t leave Wales until after 15:00.

This rally was only around 100 miles or so away, we would not arrive at the camp site until around 17:00 -18:00, that is if we didn’t get lost on the way.

So as it was too late to go for a ride, we decided to go to a local pub after getting to the rally site.

Brian had spotted a pub just up the road when we were heading for the rally site.

So that is where we headed, Roy had taken his Suzuki GS 750 sidecar outfit to the rally, so we all climbed on to it.

Pulling out from the rally site there were two of us sitting on the bike itself, and three in the sidecar.

None of us had helmets on and there were a few very big guys on this bike combo outfit, Roy, Mark and Brian were all 6`4” and Roy and Mark were over 18 stone each in weight.

Roy must have had a devil of a job guiding the bike around the bends with all that weight spread over the bike, there must have been more than seventy stone in weight weighing the bike down. We were heading up the leafy lane to the pub, we rode around some twisty bends, some shape, crossing onto the wrong side of the road just to keep the bike on the road.

And then around one bend in the lane.

There it was.

A police mini parked in a lay-by just out of sight.

Two coppers were sitting in the car, they watched us as we rode passed.

They just rolled their eyes and shook their heads, they did not bother to try and follow us, they just watched us ride past, one copper was on his radio hand set.

We all just laughed as we sped passed them.

( Photo 4 ) . THE SLAB HOUSE INN. The pub is now a private home, we have even less of a chance of getting a pint in there now.

The pub was called the SLAB HOUSE INN, we pulled up in to the car park, all hanging on for grime death, the side-car outfit was unstable as hell with all our weight on it, and Roy riding like a lunatic.

The car park was in front of the pub, there were many cars already parked there.

It looked like a busy pub.

It was a typical country pub in the middle of nowhere with no houses anywhere nearby, someone said this should be interesting, let's see if we get served.

Roy parked the combo directly outside the main entrance of the pub, we all untangled our self’s from the bike, and we went inside.

As soon as we entered the bar, we could see it was quite busy.

Everyone in the bar stopped talking, and looked in our direction, it was filled with middle-aged, middle-class men, wearing cashmere cardigans, and comfortable hush-puppy loafer’s, there was complete silence, nothing was said they just stared at us, with added looks of disgust, they didn’t seem very welcoming, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.

We approached the bar with thirty pairs of eyes following our every move, the landlord looked at us and said in a loud firm voice “ you can't come in here”! .

We were not put out by this situation, it was what we were expecting, this kind of response was normal for us to experience, this was the kind of attitude from landlords and other non-biking people, we received almost everywhere we went.

The landlord looked like a typical British landlord, middle-aged with a portly appearance, and a well-developed beer gut, wearing a pastel blue jumper over a white shirt, the jumper had an obscure brand name badge on the left side shaped like a peacock, well it was either a peacock or some kind of duck, it was hard to tell. These type of people always had issues with anyone that did not fit into their kind of lifestyle, and they always tried to pretend the likes of us did not exist, out of sight out of mind, as they say.

Well, we were not going away, we just stared back at the people hiding behind their pints

Roy said “ we only want a couple of pints, and then we will be on our way “.

The pub stayed quiet, their eyes were still burning into us, with a lot of the pub customers mumbling into their pints and gin and tonics.

All the customers were watching the conversion we were having with the landlord with great interest, this must have been one of the most exciting nights they had in this pub.

The landlord was a big man, but not as big as Roy or Mark, he looked Roy and Mark up and down, most likely thinking he was going to have trouble removing these two by force.

Anyway if he took on one of us on, he took all of us on, there were around twenty odd customers in the pub and five of us.

I think the odds were against them, and I think the landlord knew this from the off and didn’t want the hassle or the disruption to his Friday night, and of course he wanted to keep his pub in one piece.

The landlord was silent for a moment, and then he said “ I’ll serve you in the back room, but not in the bar”.

We said “ ok, that suits us, show us the way “.

The landlord looked at the door behind us and said “ its through that door that you just came though and then on your right “.

He came from behind the bar and said “ this way ”, pointing in the direction of a small corridor, he looked us all up and down again, he was not happy we were in his pub.

The pub was still silent.

He showed us to a simple room with one long table in the center and a number of chairs scattered around it, it was painted in an off-white colour, devoid of any character with two small prints of old hunting scene’s on the wall, and one window for natural light, if this room did not have a table and chairs in it, it could well have been a store room.

The landlord said “ I’ll send the girl in to take your order, I want no trouble or I’ll call the police, don’t leave this room ”.

He left the room, and we all laughed loud enough for him to hear us, his attitude to us was the typical attitude of the time in non bike friendly pubs.

We were used to it, most places just refused to server us, we only wanted a couple of pints, like Roy said at the time, a couple of pints, and we would be on our way, but these kinds of people always saw the bad side of us.

The bar girl came in to the room, and we ordered three pints of Guinness and four bottles of lager, and five packs of crisp, the girl was small built and in her late teens.

She looked terrified, she didn’t speak.

We did not say a word as she put the tray of drinks on the table, we all said “ thank you “ and then without looking up she removed everything off the try and left the room as quickly as she came in.

Wobble laughed and said “ we must smell “ Brian answered him with a smile on his face “ that’s normal for you “.

( Photo 5 ) . In the back room of the slab house pub, with some very strange people in it, from the left big Roy, Mark, Brian and Wobble, I took the photo.

After we drank the first pints, I went to the door that lead to the main bar to order more drinks, I opened the door and the landlord was standing right behind it, he must have been standing behind the door all the time that we were in the back room.

The rest of the pub went very quite again, I looked around and thought all these guys must have never seen bikers before, I said “ same again please “, to the landlord “, he just stared at me and said “ I’ll bring them to you in the backroom, go back in the room, you'll have your order soon ”.

I said “ here take the money for the pints “ and handed him the money, he took the notes off me, and he gave the money to the girl behind the bar and told me “ I'll bring the change in with me when you get your drinks “.

We did not have to wait long, he came into the room just like he said he would and put the ordered drinks on the table and said “ how long are you people going to stay? ” I said “ we’ll see after we drink these pints “, and I just stared at him and gave him a little smile, he turned away looking very unhappy and walked out of the room, not saying another word, we had every intention to go when we finished our drinks, but I wanted him to feel the awkwardness of having no real power or control over us, he was very rude to us, so in a way by telling him we would go when we were ready too, took the wind out of his sails and put him in his place, he did not have to treat us or speak to us the way he did, so he deserved the extra stress time.

As we were finishing our drinks, three more bikers from the rally site came in.

There were two guys and one girl they had strong London accents, and they too were directed to our back room by the landlord.

The landlord gave them the same speech that he gave us, it looked like the landlord's nightmare was not just over yet.

We chatted to the London bikers for a little while, and told them how much of a prick the landlord was to us by isolating us in this small bunker of a room.

We drank our pints and left the other bikers there, and just headed for the car park.

The landlord followed us out, and watched us leave, and he didn’t even wave goodbye, not the friendliest pub we have been too, but the beer was good.

This was not the first time or the last that we had this kind of attitude from pub landlords, we kind of expected it, it was typical of the time with their stupid dress codes etc.

It's not as if we were covered in mud, and had slept in our clothes all weekend, well not YET.

Well maybe Wobble did, he never looked any different, we headed back to the rally site, and went straight for the beer tent.

Fuck the SLAB HOUSE and fuck the landlord, we were in better company.

( Photo 6 ) . Roy’s GS 750 sidecar outfit at the rally with Wobble, Brian, Mark and Roy, I took the photo, that’s why I’m not in the photo again, the photo is a little out of focus, it must have been the scrumpy.

Back to the rally field.

There was one other event which happened at this rally which I remember quite vividly which always comes to mind every time I go down to this part of the country.

This rally was in the Mendips area of England, and that is why it was simply called the MENDIP RALLY, not a very imaginative name for a rally, but at lest you knew where it was, we went to so many in this region of the West Country, I have forgotten some of the names of the rallies.

The rally camp site of this rally was in the middle of nowhere just like a lot of other rallies, the closest pub was a good walk away through dark unlit lanes with no pavements and high hedges, it was a good idea by the organizers to keep us from the normal people who lived in the area, most likely because of the nonsense we got up too and the local people would have objected, we didn’t mind.

We didn’t care what they thought, it was their loss, we knew how to enjoy ourselves even if it did involve a lot of drinking and boisterous activities.

At the camp site there was a large wooden building on site very much like an old fashion village hall it was a fair size building with a number of rooms running off from the main hall which some rooms were set up as sleeping quarters for visiting strange people who like crawling though holes in the ground, they were either hobbits or potholers, they may have been a little tall for hobbits, but we will call them hobbits just the same, because their hobbies and lifestyle suits the description.

( Photo 7 ) . A Village hall very much like this one, the hall that we were in was lot bigger, possible doubled up has a lodge house for potholers as there were rooms with bunk beds.

Some of these Hobbits were trying to sleep and whining about the noise, mainly because the hall was being used as a sleeping quarters for the hobbits and the rally was basically all around the wooden hut, they could not escape the noise and all the activity that was going on around them.

The large /marquee tent where all the partying and drinking that was going to happen at the weekend was only a few meters away from the hut, it may have been a better idea to have the large marquee tent set up on the far side of the rally field, and keep it away from the normal population like most rallies normally did.

It looked like the hobbits had picked the wrong weekend to go pot–holing if they intended to get any sleep .

The rally carried on as any other rally with all the drinking and everyone enjoying their weekend camping in a muddy field, on the Saturday the bike games were normally held in the early afternoon to take advantage of the daylight, there would be welly throwing, tug of war and some other bike related game stuff etc, then later in the evening the bonfire would be lite and the disco / band would fire up blasting out whatever rock and pop music was popular at the time, this all happened when it became dark, it may well have not been a disco but that is what we called it.

At around 11:30 in the night, I decided to go outside from the beer tent to get some fresh air, the tent was full of tobacco smoke and some other strange smelling stuff, it was so thick it was like a constant hanging mist that refused to thin out.

It wasn’t a real problem, but I didn’t smoke, well some times only for medicinal purposes of course. I went outside to clear my lungs, and take a break from the loud music.

The marquee was too full of smoke for my liking, so a breather was necessary for me.

I didn’t go far from the tent, I sat on a low stone wall outside, nearby the car park that was directly adjacent to the wooden hall, about 10 meters away from the wooden hut, I sat on a low dry stone wall drinking my can of Colt 45 larger, another biker sitting on the wall was doing the same thing as me, taking a break.

I can't remember his name, but he came down with a small crew from the Birmingham area in the mid-lands.

There were a number of people wandering around going to and fro from the rally field, but most people were inside enjoying the night.

There was very little lighting outside except for the light shining through the windows of the wooden building casting shadows on the area outside, myself and my new brummie friend were both sitting on the wall right next to the car park.

The parking area looked like it had been laid yesterday, there was brand-new white chippings spread around everywhere, the parking space was for only about 4 cars, the gravel was quite deep and slipped under your foot has you walked upon it.

There were no bikes parked here, it was kept just for the hobbits cars, a large sign with black writing on a brilliant white background at the entrance stating “ No motorcycles beyond this point! ”.

Myself and the other guy were just chatting about every day shit like you do, and we noticed in the gloom another biker laying on the ground about 10 foot away from us laying in the middle of this graveled area, there was nothing usual about seeing bikers lying around sleeping in hedges or in open ground in a middle of a field, ( my friend Brian knows this from experience ) this was nothing to worry about at a bike rally, it was all too common to take much notice of this kind of thing, Sunday morning there will be bikers sleeping off the cider and beer in all shapes, and in some very strange places, this guy was laying on his back, but very much alive.

There were people walking around, in and out of the tent, everyone was doing their own thing, some were smoking weed in the open, it was a big NO NO back then, you would get arrested in seconds if there were coppers there, they had a zero drug tolerance back then, no matter what type of drug it was.

The music was still belting out, stuff like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Floyd.

The party had only really just started, this was going to go on until everyone fell over, or they run out of beer,

We could still hear the music outside, it was a little muffled by the distance we were from the tent, but still loud enough to stop the hobbits getting a good night sleep.

I still remember the song playing at that very moment, it was STARGAZER by RAINBOW.

The night was cooling down, I could feel the chill, and the stone wall I was sitting on felt very cold, all the stones seemed damp with the night air.

I was about to go back inside.

I had only been outside for about 15 minutes, myself and my brummie friend didn’t notice at first but one of the Hobbits had come out of his sleeping quarters and decided enough was enough, and was going for a drive somewhere more quiet….

It was around midnight, he too was most likely fed up with the noise and general activity at the rally site.

The hobbits in general were not a happy bunch of guys, they were far too serious for my liking, They didn’t look very happy earlier in the day, giving any and everyone wearing a leather jacket a long hard stare then talking to another of their like-minded people in a quiet tone so nobody could hear them, they must have thought that we were all deaf or stupid, we could hear them, and the talk was mainly of how pissed off they were that we ruined their weekend, and how scruffy we were and of course we were the scum of the earth ruining their hobbit hobby.

Well, this Hobbit got into his car and pulled off very sharply, the first we knew of it was when we heard the engine start up and then the crunch of gravel has he drove away, the driver hadn’t even switched his lights on yet, he was in such a hurry to leave the car-park.

The driver could not have seen the prone biker laying directly in his path, driving straight out and over him, his front wheels went over him, quickly followed by the back wheels, we saw the car raise a little as if it was going over a hump twice, so we knew he had driven over him! Before we could say anything the car had started to accelerate as soon as he hit the road and disappeared down the dark lane.

The guy on the ground hadn’t moved, he lay there motionless I said “ fucking hell ” to the Brummie biker “ did you just see that ”, he said something very similar to me at the same time.

Both of us got up off the wall and rushed over to the guy on the ground, to check if he was alright.

As we were only about 10 foot away from him, it only took us seconds to get to him.

We witnessed what had happened to him, no one else noticed anything, the other people that were wandering about would not have paid any attention to a car pulling off, mainly because of the music coming from the marquee and the whole area was being poorly lit up.

When we got to him, he was totally outers, not moving at all, he was totally motionless.

The brummie said “ O, FUCK “ in his thick midlands accent “ I think, he’s dead!! ” We could see the furrows of the car wheels in the gravel that went straight over him, and then we saw he moved a little.

He kind of just stirred as if he was just waking up from a long deep sleep, so we started to talk to him, and check him for any injuries.

When we were closer, we could see there were no signs of any marks at all.

and then we noticed the Tire marks over the lower parts of his legs just below the knees, there were white gravel marks on his jeans, left behind by the car wheels, we could plainly see the pattern tread of the tires.

We started Shaking him violently to wake him up, he was not very responsive at first.

but he came around with some little effort from both of us shouting at him and shaking him, he looked up at us, looking quite confused, his eyes looked very glaze`y, he was obviously still very drunk.

We managed to get him to sit up right, he still looked very confused and gave us both a very hard stare trying to focus on us, and then we said “ dude you ok, don’t get up you just got run over by a car! ”, the only thing he said was ” I could do with a fucking drink ”, he rolled over on to his knees, got straight up and then staggered on to his feet, and then slowly walked off towards the hall like a drunken sailor, not used to walking on firm ground.

Well, we both looked at each other dumbfounded, we had just witnessed this guy being run over by a car and it didn’t phase him in the least, he did not look any worse for ware, for anything that had just happened, it was obvious that he had a lot to drink and didn't feel anything.

We watched him stagger to the marquee and disappear inside.

As he walked away, my comment to the English biker was “ well fuck me, I have never seen that before ”.

The brummie biker said “ he must be drinking that local scrumpy “.

The next morning in the light of a new day, myself, Wobble and Brian went for breakfast, Roy was still curled up in his sleeping bag, I have no idea where Mark was.

A mug of hot tea and a bacon sarnie was always welcome after a Saturday night drinking, so it was worth the effort to get up for breakfast.

The rally organizers had set up a small kitchen area in the beer tent, which was up and running and a long queue had already formed, the guys in the kitchen had a busy time on their hands.

( Photo 8 ) . A typical view of a bike rally site, this photo was from the 1980 Mendip rally, the large white tent in the distance is the beer / disco marquee.

On the way to the big tent, I made detour to take a look at the graveled car park to see what it looked like in daylight, I was still finding it hard to believe to what I had witnessed last night and I needed to check that it wasn’t just a dream.

The area looked very different without the shadows, I could see the gravel was quite deep and the furrows created by the car from the night before were still there, they were the same furrows from the car that drove over the guys legs.

The weight of the car must have pressed his legs down into the gravel which gave way as the car drove over him.

There was no sign of the car that I had seen the night before, it had still not come back, there was a gap from where it was parked, he must have said fuck it, and went home for the night to get some sleep because he was not going to get any here.

I didn’t go back to my tent till after three in the morning and there were still many people drinking and enjoying themselves, the partying went on all night.

The rally site was pretty quiet in the morning, many bikers had not got up from their slumber, the only thing that made a noise was the generator next to the marquee.

As I entered the big tent, I could smell the aroma of the bacon and the toast filling the air.

I watched the steam from tea boiler flowing across the high ceiling of the tent, the morning air was still quite fresh, there was no heating, so a nice hot cup of tea was always something to look forward too, even if it was stewed and thick as mud.

I queued up like everyone else for my breakfast, then, there he was in the same queue, was the guy that was run over the night before.

Looking like any other biker at this time period, wearing a black leather jacket and a denim cut off, showing off all the rally and all the other type of badges we wore back then, he had long hair down past his shoulders just like the rest of us, and sporting a scruffy beard, there were many there who looked very much like he did, we all wore the same kind of clothes, and had the saw type of hairstyle, if that is what it could be called.

But I knew it was the same guy, the white dust from the gravel was still visible on the lower part of his legs, he even had bits of gravel still embedded in his jeans.

I also knew it was him because he was complaining to his mate who was standing in line with him in the queue saying “ what the fuck did do last night, my legs are killing me this morning! ”, His mate said “ fucked if I know, I was too pissed to see or remember anything ”.

I left my place in the queue and walked up to him, I had to say something to him, he had no idea what had happened to him the night before.

I simply said “ don’t you remember anything from last night ”.

He looked at me quizzingley and said “ no I don’t, what the fuck happened, I feel has if I had been run over ”.

The bikers name was John, he and several others had ridden up from the Southampton area.

I told him what we had witnessed the night before, explaining to him what myself and the brummie biker had seen with the car running over his legs.

He didn’t remember anything, “ I was drinking the local scrumpy all night ”, one of his friends said “ well fuck dude he could have driven over you head ”.

He simply said “ yeah ” and looked down at his legs.

All of us nodded, knowing it could have been a lot worse, I seen him later in the day on the camp site, I asked how his legs were, he answered “ yeah not to bad now, there are no broken bones ”, not that he bothered to have them checked by a doctor, “ I can still walk on them, they just hurt a little were the gravel was pressed in from the weight of the car pushing them into the ground, but otherwise they are ok, thanks”.

The scrumpy he had consumed must have been quite a lot from the look of him, and many other bikers must have been on the scrumpy from the state of many of them in the morning, there were many bikers with hangovers this morning some had to leave the breakfast line to throw up, the smell of the cooking food was to much for them to face this early in the morning, they all looked rough has fuck after they all had been drinking that local cider all night, when in Rome as the man says.

John the Southampton biker got so drunk on the cider it had dulled his senses to the point that he did not feel anything until the next morning.

It could have been much worse, it could have been his head or his chest and not his legs that was run over.

The rally was very well attend with the maximum amount of people attending the rally, around 250 attending.

Across the field, the rally was dominated by JAP bikes of all types, mostly mid-range cc`s from 400 cc sports to the 1000 cc typical touring bikes, I noticed an Italian Moto Guzzi 750, which was not a common sight back then, well not in my part of the world, and a pair of very nice looking black Norton's, there was also a few Brit bikes dotted around the camp site, one rider and bike stood out from all the others and this happen to be a Harley-Davidson not because it looked better than any of the other bikes there, but mainly because the Harley rider had isolated himself away from all the other tents and his bike was set up as if it was on display.

I have to say, I'm not a fan of the Harley, I do think they look good, the styling is always a little bit classier then the Jap bikes, and the exhaust note always draws attention and that is all the pros I can think of, and then they have a few cons they were far to expensive compared to most JAP bikes at the time, and reliability is questionable so I have been told.

That’s my personnel opinion of course.

I've never owned one of these bikes, but from what I have been told by others who have had the experience of riding this big lump of metal, is that they do not handle very well and the performance of a big engine that the Harley uses is lacking in top speed and acceleration, and the reliability factor of the bike is pretty low.

I have been told if you ride more than 50 miles without the bike having any kind of issues you have a good one and are very lucky.

The people I have spoken to said they would never buy another one no matter what version it was.

The Harley at this rally was immaculate.

The rider pitched his single man pup tent away from everyone, the bike itself stood proudly directly outside the front of the tent.

The guy could literately reach out and touch it with no effort whatsoever.

It was never a good idea to have a bike parked so close to a tent, because for some reason if the bike moved in the night under its own weight, it could possibly fall directly onto the tent which could crush the rider inside.

Most people parked their bikes close to the tents, but not to close that it could fall on to the tent, it was common sense not do this for obvious reasons, this Harley was a 1200 cc Monster, one heavy piece of metal.

The bike had all the trimmings you could buy from the Harley parts cantaloupe leather dangley bits hung from the handle bar ends, it was also equipped with real leather panniers, with more leather dangley bits hanging off the panniers.

On the Saturday daytime, I notched the rider polishing his bike, he was wiping every single bit of rally mud off his shiny immaculate princess, not that it needed cleaning the bike had not moved since he rode the bike into the rally field on the Friday, when the Harley rider turned up he parked the bike up, and it stayed in that position until he left the rally on Sunday.

The bike could well have been in a showroom the way it gleamed in the sunlight, I will say it did look good, it was a good-looking bike.

The Harley was in complete contrast to its muddy Jap cousins that were parked up nearby.

The rider himself had a tight-fitting black leather waste-coat with more leather tassels draping off it, and he also had an American flag bandanna wrapped around the top of his head, This guy was living the American dream.

The Harley rider left before us on the Sunday, he pulled out from the rally site, and to be fair the bike sounded and looked the part, it had a smooth thumping sound as he pulled away, he only traveled a couple of hundred yards / meters up the lane, and then he stopped and pulled over into a small lay-by that was directly opposite the rally site on the main road.

I looked over to where he was through the hedges from the field, thinking he may have had a problem with the bike.

He flicked his side stand down, and climbed off the bike and then took off his Matt black open-face helmet, which he carefully placed on to his king and queen style seat, from one of his zip pockets of his leather jacket he took out a cloth and then proceeded to clean the mud off the bike that he had just picked up from leaving the field.

This guy was really living the dream or do I mean living in a dream.

Oh well, each to their own.

This Harley guy was not typical of the bikers on the road at the time of this rally in 1985.

But sad to say, I see lots of versions of this Harley guy nowa days, all riding around on shinny factory built custom bikes on sunny days, mainly on the weekends as they ride along on their 20-mile round trip to nowhere.

It was a good rally, we all enjoyed the weekend, and we all got home safely, to ride another day.

So who needs ketamine when you have scrumpy.

( Photo 9 ) . Another typical rally scene, photo taken at the 1980 Mendip rally.