Sulby Straight

This story is among my all-time favourites. Some years ago - knowing I was on the hunt for stories - former Manx Radio TT commentator Charlie Lambert emailed me a story which absolutely crystallises the TT's spirit. It involved sidecar driver Tim Reeves, a lawnmower and a lot of nous ...

Reeves (now a one-time TT winner and seven times sidecarworld champion) was having some trouble during a practice session in the 2009 TT and had to pull over at Sulby with a broken throttle cable. Fortunately, a teenage girl nearby the scene with incredible presence of mind realised the throttle cable was similar to that in a lawnmower and that her family's repair business - just beyond the road - might have something. She was right: Reeves swiftly replaced his throttle cable with one from a lawnmower and duly continued with practice.

I knew exactly what I wanted in this image: a simple, straight-on view of a woman pushing a lawnmower across the road in heels. I liked the absurdity of 'mowing' the tarmac - in stilettos. So off we went, at about 5am, to set up the shot. But just as I started to push the mower, a gang of German tourists clambered out of the Sulby Glen Hotel. The looks on their faces were priceless ... Quite what they thought was happening, we will never know.

In 2012, our TT calendar trio were - luckily- all camped out in one house, which made the gruelling 4am starts somewhat easier. And as the entire mission was based around re-creating historical events at the exact location at which they occurred, it made sense to call the series 'Milestones: It chimed with the TT's history. In this feature, I wanted to share with you the stories behind the making of some of the images and the historical event that inspired their creation.