SOUND OFF, ONE, TWO, SOUND OFF, THREE, FOUR!

Saturday, August 1979, 6pm.

Been working all day in bike shop (Dorchester). All my mates'd ridden down to Cornwall ahead of me for the Tamar Rally, set up camp, and were already in the pub.

I'd been looking out of the showroom window all day at my heavily laden CXS00, with its Craven panniers bulging with camping equipment and food ready for a fry-up the next morning

- the longest day of my life waiting for closing time. I remember it was a beautiful sunny evening, quiet roads, so excited, looking forward to a drunken night of looking, and acting, like a complete prick after a day of 'Yes, sir, can I help you sir?' to the usual boring cretins that I had to deal with, as all the proper customers.

After a couple of hours, after crossing over the Tamar bridge into a foreign land, asking the locals how to get to the tiny village of Kingston (I think it was

Kingston), and choosing carefully who I asked (being a scruffy patchouli-smelling biker wearing a bullet belt), found my mates' tents, set up mine, and went off to join them in the pub. It never took me long to reach their level of stupidity as, not being much of a drinker, downing one bottle of strong lager could easily let me catch them up. Being a warm, sunny evening, we were all sat outside the pub on the grass, listening to singing coming from the church not far away (must've been choir practice), and it was a nice sort of combination of the feeling of having just the right amount of alcohol without being completely pissed, and the soothing sound of the lulling songs drifting over from the church.

Then, as the old bids that were doing the singing came out, all buttoned up with their cardies on, one drove her Morris 1000 (Moggy Thou to those of you who remember) down to the junction by the pub where we'd all gathered. Big mistake! One lad, who could hardly stand, managed to drop his cacks, and proceeded to press his tackle against the poor old bid's side window. Ithink she ignored the speed limit after her experience of 'psalms to penis', and broke the record for the fastest Morris in Cornwall that night.

Sadly, as expected, the next year we were banned from the pub, and had to drink in the marquee on the campsite... not the same somehow.

STEVE WARREN Funny how stuff like that happens, isn't it? At the time we never really understand why, do we?N.