I travelled the world in my trusty Landy
My clAIM to fame is that I’ve driven my land Rover (Mail), known as Ashanti, to the highest point reached by such a vehicle: up the famous home of the Gods, Mount Olympus. If land Rover is looking for a suitable driver to test its new model, my cV isn’t bad. I’ll be 75 on August 9 and have been driving accident-free for 58 years in deserts, jungles and up mountains, in more than 100 countries. My claim to have been to the highest point driven in a landy rests on my 1969 trip when, aged 30, I pointed Ashanti across the channel and came back many countries and many years later. I don’t think anyone has ever driven a land Rover higher than when I took mine, with the Greek Army, to their ski school on Mount Olympus. I drove up their tank tracks in low ratio crawler gear, passed the ski school and continued until I was above the clouds. As proof, somewhere up there is a rock with my name — Mik of Arabia — carved into it. It was so cold later in the afternoon when the sun disappeared that I decided to go down a few thousand feet. When it got dark and was too dangerous to continue going down, I parked as best I could on a corner where it was reasonably flat and set about cooking some rice for dinner. It was difficult crossing Turkey because it was the time when the 14-year-old English lad Timothy Davey had been jailed for drug possession. As a result, anyone English was picked on. Every few miles I went in Turkey, the long arm of the law stopped my landy and proceeded to throw all my worldly goods on the floor on the pretext of looking for drugs. They never found so much as an aspirin. I had a less scary time living with the Bluemen (Tuaregs), with their scimitars, in the Sahara desert. One of the biggest joys wherever I went was people coming out of their houses, having seen the map of the world on the side of Ashanti and the dotted line running right up to where I was at that minute, and stopping me and pointing to where I was, then inviting me in for tea. That’s how we should all be: smile, laugh, love and live together in harmony in this world, which is still a spectacular and beautiful place. MIK ‘OF ARABIA’ HARCOMBE,
address supplied. I’M A great admirer of the land Rover (Mail). In 1975, my family and I went to Botswana on a two-year contract for the crown Agents. I was senior inspector of works for the diesel engines that powered the generators used extensively in Botswana at the time. My work took me far out into the Kalahari desert, and on one occasion I was deep in the desert when my wife was admitted to the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone for the birth of our second daughter. Keen to get there as soon as my work was finished, I headed back at great speed. Approaching a dried-up riverbed, I went down the bank without slackening speed. My land Rover took-off and landed very heavily. As I continued down the rough dirt-track, I became aware that every time the vehicle went over a rut there was a heavy ‘bang, bang!’ from under the bonnet, but I pressed on. Getting out of the vehicle at our HQ, I lifted the bonnet to see that one of the enginemounts had broken and the engine was leaning on the chassis — but it kept going. This episode gave me an even greater affection for the land Rover, which was already very high. Those people haven’t the faintest idea of what they are doing in condemning this wonderful vehicle to death.
PHILIP ROE, Stamford Bridge, York.
I WAS surprised at Max Hastings’s claim that land Rover Defenders never break down. Any owner of a land Rover is known as a member of the ‘bonnet up club’, and other sayings include ‘water in — oil out’. Two things that can be seen from outer space: the Great Wall of china and the door gaps in a land Rover. Most sensible off-road drivers would have a Toyota land cruiser.
J. MITCHELL, Ruthin, Denbighshire.