The Lancashire Automobile Club Ltd

Yet again Mitton Hall was the starting point for this ever popular event for those with a masochistic tendency. Thirty eight participants, in a wide range of interesting and diverse motor cars arrived for the customary “Bacon Butty” to stoke up the energy levels of both driver and navigator. The ever devious organiser John “The Bastard” Hartley delivered his customary briefing advising all drivers to take extreme care through villages, avoid sheep and lambs, cyclists, pedestrians, and any other target, sorry obstacle that may appear on the Queens highway.

Leaving at one minute intervals, the cars followed the usual convoluted route, aiming for the Plough Inn at Wigglesworth for the lunch halt. However if it all sounds too easy it certainly is not. Have a go some time and you will find out, trying to keep up to the average speed, which appears fairly low is very difficult, time is eaten up with stops to plot the course, missed junctions, slow traffic, tractors etc etc. Briefly the morning route left via Whalley, Wiswell, Sabden, Sabden Fold,Newchurch,Roughlee, Downham, Rimmington, Barnoldswick, West Marton, Gargrave, Rylstone, Hellifield and finally to lunch, which was excellent and very welcome. The morning had been fine and dry,however things were to change for the afternoon section.

Leaving the lunch halt aiming for Settle, most crews took the opportunity to refuel, before taking to the hills of the Yorkshire Dales. Climbing up above Malham Cove and into the rain, which carried on for the rest of the afternoon, so it’s wet legs and soggy map time .Down into Langcliffe, and on to Helwith Bridge, Austwick and Clapham Station and into a maze of lanes near Bentham before the charge over Lythe Fell to Slaidbun then Newton, Dunsop Bridge, Chipping, Jeffrey Hill, and to Hurst Green, a short circuit around Stonyhurst College, a few more lanes and then back to Mitton Hall.

2009 EVENT REPORT

A HUSBAND & WIFES REFLECTIONS on THE “FELLSMAN” 2009

The Husbands View.

The 2009 Fellsman Rally was the 9th that I have taken part in. I think my first one was John Hartley’s very first effort in 1992 and, apart from two runs in an Austin-Healey 3000 BJ8 that left my custodianship in 1997, all my forays have been in my Austin-Healey 100 GSK 116. I have always driven, have been accompanied by a variety of co-driver / navigators, and we have never “cleaned” the course. That is probably testament to John Hartley’s twisted thinking in devising his fiendishly difficult navigation challenges as each year he seems to get more adept at fooling us out of our complacency.

I missed out on a few Fellsmen over the years because of date clashes with holidays planned in Skye and with the Scottish Austin Healey Club Sub-Centre’s “Chasin The Haggis” tour , but this year our diary was free so I submitted an entry. Whilst my wife Pam is quite good at navigating from standard route books I always felt that she would not enjoy the more rigorous requirements of navigating head-down from cryptic instructions to be plotted on to a map and then translated into route instructions to the comparatively unstressed driver; not least of which because she likes to enjoy the views and has in the past had a tendency towards car sickness in the Healey on twisty roads. Added to that is my short fuse, as my friend Tim calls my temper, and that does nothing but promote in-car conflict at the first wrong turn. In my defence I would say that my temper must appear worse than it actually is (I never feel that angry – at least not for long) and that it is always directed at myself, although I never seem to manage to convince my co-driver of that. So my navigator has always been a third party and this year I was proposing to use the rally as a workout to test the navigational skills of my future son-in-law. Well I should have remembered that young people these days lead busy lives and are not necessarily as organised as they like to think they are. He said yes but, two weeks before the rally, decided that it clashed with a cricket match (he does play every weekend may I say) and cried off. So I forgave him, his navigation skills remain untested, and Pam, feeling sorry for me, offered to take his place.

I tried a couple of the “Table Top” rallies, sample navigation exercises, with only limited success. On my previous Fellsmen there always seemed to be one or two directions that completely lost me. I suppose the solution to the problem is in keeping one’s head under pressure; much easier said than done. Even so it should be easy on the table in the lounge but I still struggled. Never mind, I thought, we’ll have a good day out and we did have a fall back plan that was to follow Alasdair and Jean Chalmers in their Healey should the need arise. So I tried another exercise, this time with Pam, but again with only moderate success, and we reached a firm agreement that we would plot our route by the roadside, stop whenever we felt we were going wrong and stay cool at all times.

The weather was perfect and that does make such a big difference. I saw the reports of last year’s event in the rain. It did not look fun and navigation looks to become impossible under monsoon conditions. But there were no such problems this time and we were soon on our way, starting by, I think, backtracking some of the route that ended the LAC St. George’s Day a few weekends earlier. The morning went well and we were checked in at lunch within the allocated time. I would have sworn that we also picked up all the Via Boards but one avoided my gaze and, as the driver, I do accept responsibility for spotting them, and I still haven’t a clue as to how we missed it. The thought occurred that maybe one of the more competitive crews might have parked up in front of it whilst stopping for a plot, but that wouldn’t be cricket would it? It might liven things up a bit though!

The afternoon proved to be rather more difficult. That may have had something to do with the food and lager at the lunch stop, but we both ran out of steam and started to make mistakes. I don’t think we were alone in that as a clutch of cars seemed to be passing and re-passing each other at regular intervals so we were all going wrong somewhere. We made one particularly bad blunder and managed to get our minds out of sync with the scale of the map so it took us several minutes to find out where we actually were before we could work out our error and regain the track. The run down the Trough of Bowland was beautiful and at least on that section of road we could take in the scenery because there were no turn-offs to fool us. Just beyond Dunsop Bridge we passed an ice-cream van and Pam decided that she just had to have a Mr.Whippy. I was tired and needed a rest so I didn’t complain but felt the better for it once we regained the road and the last section to the finish. At one time I thought John Hartley might be leading us through Chipping and I was prepared for his trickery because, on previous events, Chipping has always been our downfall. Several times we have tried every road in and out of the village before finally working out the route so this time I was ready. But we weren’t sent there and I must admit to a slight feeling of disappointment. I would like to come clean out of Chipping just one time in my life! The final few miles seemed to go very well and we seemed to regain our morning’s rhythm but the damage had already been done and we finally checked in out-of-time and two or three boards light.

We were tired at the finish; so tired that we were both glad that we had not booked to stay for the evening meal. For an event like the Fellsman I always feel that we also need a get-together event on another day to reminisce our experiences with other crews because on the day we are all too busy and then, at the end, too tired to socialise and swap experiences. But instead we thrashed straight home to Manchester and collapsed into instant, senseless sleep for a well-earned early night. It had been a superb day. GSK had run faultlessly. We were sunburned, had enjoyed some magnificent scenery, and were buoyed by a sense of achievement at having at least completed the event and were not too far away from par for the course. It has taken Pam and I many years to decide that we may have the makings of a functioning navigator/driver team so a few more years and we might be ready for something really competitive. One of these days I will have to sit in the navigator’s seat but I’m sure I couldn’t do any better than Pam did. Thanks again to John Hartley, Mike Raven and their team for organising a superb event and thanks to Bernard Jones for patiently waiting around all day to sign us through the checkpoints.

Ivor Davies (Driver Austin-Healey 100, GSK 116).

The Wife’s View.

It was with some trepidation that I volunteered myself to partner Ivor on this years Fellsman Rally. Over the years I have always managed to be otherwise engaged, either very busy or away, but this year a last minute change of plan left him partner-less so I stepped in with the proviso that if he got cross or started swearing I was off! I wasn’t sure what navigating on the Fellsman involved except that it would be a step up from my usual navigating. I had heard mention of grid references, spot heights etc but thought that wasn’t anything to do with me. To his credit, Ivor did try to give me a quick lesson on the technical stuff a few days before the rally, plotting a sample route on a map, but, whereas I can manage “Go under the A59 and a railway” with the best of them, when it comes to “Approach ENE819/2 541 Depart NNW” – what is all that about? Clueless comes to mind but only I can say that, not him.

On the day the weather could not have been better; cloudless blue skies and bright sunshine. When we arrived at Mitton Hall there were a few ladies about but mainly there seemed to be lots of men eating lots of bacon butties and drinking lots of coffee. Ivor checked in and we decided that the only way to do this was if he did all the hard stuff, working out where we should be going and pencilling it in on the map, and I would try to navigate our route on the move. This worked quite well in the morning and I felt proud of myself as I kept one finger on the instructions and another on the map with the wind in my hair and the sun on my neck. Great!

Sadly I didn’t have time to look up and enjoy as much of the beautiful countryside as I would have liked especially as Ribblesdale and the Forest of Gisburn were looking at their best. Lunch was a welcome rest, a chance to chat with other drivers and navigators over our sandwiches, quiche and drinks, and to look at the cars. I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed the morning run. The weather was a bonus and I felt quite a sense of achievement when we reached the lunch stop in time and having collected seemingly lots of Via Boards along the way.

The afternoon did not go quite so well! My concentration slipped and poor Ivor was struggling to find the correct grid lines and spot heights to cross. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help to him. We did seem at times to being going round in circles and, sometime mid-afternoon, I could feel the tension rising so when I saw an old blue classic car in front of us I said “quick, follow them”. Actually they didn’t know where they were heading either so we “lost” them and muddled through on our own, mainly due to Ivor’s innate sense of direction.

We finally made it back to Mitton Hall, out of time by about 40 minutes and missing a couple of Via Boards, but it had been a thoroughly enjoyable day all round and I didn’t feel that I had disgraced us at all. Ivor, to his credit, didn’t even raise an eyebrow when I felt I just had to stop for a Mr. Whippy, my favourite ice cream just beyond Dunsop Bridge.

Would I do it again? Well, the weather certainly helped and, if he was desperate, yes, I think I would!

All credit to the organisers for sorting out such a devilish route plan.

Pam Davies (Navigator, GSK 116).

EVENT REPORT (2006)

2006 Fellsman Classic Tour

20^th May

Location the NorthWET of England

Saturday morning, I rolled up at Peter’s house and was even further disappointed to be told we would not be taking the Morgan out for the day. We were to be in a 2003 MINI Cooper S, a decision I was later very grateful for. On with business, we made our way over to the Waddington Arms for the now legendary bacon butties and coffee. Suitably fortified, all the crews attended a short briefing from John Hartley, giving out the usual advice about driving standards and a couple of advance warnings about the route. The correct morning route would be 75 miles and 85 in the afternoon.

Details noted, we moved to the cars to await our road book. Out in the car park some were busy with last minute fettling and a bit of banter, some just waited in the cars wondering what lay ahead. After what seemed like a lifetime our route was passed through the window. We had discussed our strategy, plot the first few miles, stop then plot the remainder. Time had suddenly gone into warp drive, we were all too soon on the start line, “5,4,3,2,1 away you go”. We soon picked up the first of the “via” boards and settled into the groove. It wasn’t long before we were passing through floodwater, my thoughts turned to those lovely classic cars with low sills, already, I was thanking Peter for his choice of car.

On the road between Padiham and Sabden we stopped to plot the remainder of the route. On towards and around Burnley, through the floods between the reservoirs (a Vauxhall Vectra turned round and found an alternative route) I was here the Escort passed us and confirmed the road was “doable”. We then had a manned control and were told the ford was too deep and was impassable we had to turn around and go against the flow for a short section and rejoin the main route again. Then continued towards Todmorden, left and up the narrow lane past the cautioned blind bends (noted at the briefing) up and round to Hebden Bridge, north to Oxenhope and on to Haworth (Bronte country). Having successfully made it down the narrow lanes, we then crossed the A59 at Broughton Hall, and on to the lunch stop at the Anchor Inn, Gargrave. We had just 4 minutes of allowable lateness left but we had made it and only dropped two via boards.

Time to relax, enjoy the buffet lunch and a quick drink. Ten minutes prior to our departure time we picked up our afternoon route. We plotted nearly the entire route at the table before leaving the comfort of the pub, but I had struggled with a bit of plotting and taken far too much time. So we had to leave and get some miles covered before the via boards were collected in front of us. On the road, things were going well, bagging boards and seeing some spectacular scenery (through the murky clouds). There seemed to be cars going in all directions, every time, I was asked if I was sure we were going the right way. Most of the time I was, but on one occasion I was pleased to see the Mk1 Escort coming towards us just as we had turned round after realising I had a mistake, (phew, not just me then).

Settle, Clapham, soon passed and we stopped in Gisburn Forest to plot the last page from the road book. Whilst parked up we were passed by the Gold Mercedes and the Mk 1 Escort. The route then took us passed familiar territory to me (from previous rally days), to bypass Slaidburn. Through Dunsop Bridge and the Trough of Bowland, I sensed Peter knew this bit as he seemed to flow and press on through here. We travelled through the picturesque Abbeystead lanes taking an opportunity to get out and stretch the legs whilst opening a gate. The drive through the Wyreside Hall and Dolphinholme area unveiled some fantastic narrow lanes (and I thought I new the area well (from the previously mentioned rally days). Forton, Scorton, Oakenclough, Harrisend fell and across the back of Garstang, back over to Longridge fell. We were behind a Healey and MGA going down off the fell into Hodder Bridge, hats off to you guys you seemed to be pressing on very well, We continued to follow these two round the sneaky little loop around Bashall farm to bag the our last via board and then run back into Waddington in time for tea and medals. We had only dropped one via board and were well in time on the afternoon section. We had time for a quick pint, swop a few stories and then had to head for home.

I had enjoyed my introduction to navigation and would like to thank all involved, a special thanks to the marshals out there in the wet (I have been there, I know what it is like, that is why you are thanked first) John and Mike for putting together what was an very interesting route (driving challenges and navigational ones too) the other members of the organising team - a sterling job. Thanks to the staff of the Waddington Arms, Waddington and the Anchor Inn, Gargrave. Finally I would like to thank Peter for giving me the opportunity to have a go at such a great event.