Motorbikes At A Steam Show

It sounds all wrong, for as far as I know the steam motorcycle has yet to be invented, but it still makes perfect sense to me. Motorbikes were a huge part of growing up around here in the 1950s and 60s. I often would visit friends in the village to find them with a motorbike in bits in the shed - or on one memorable occasion in the kitchen; their mother having gone out for the afternoon.

That particular episode did not end well, though the mechanical expertise gained piecemeal in teenage years must have given a head start to those who later turned their hands to restoring the kind of vehicles on display at Haddenham Steam Rally.

There were easily accessible motorbike sports too. "Scrambling" or "moto-cross" was racing stripped-down bikes over rough and often muddy terrain. In summer "grasstrack racing" was a low-cost version of "speedway". Men like Dave Bickers, Andy Lee and Badger Goss became heroes to those who cared little about footballers or pop stars.

"Motorcycle trials" is a different kind of sport. It's not a race but depends on successfully negotiating a seemingly impossible obstacle course. Penalty points are incurred if you put a foot to the ground. "Dabbing" was the term used for putting a foot down and a group self-deprecatingly known as Dabbers Trials Club were on hand to demonstrate. 

The beauty of trials is that you can pitch it at whatever standard you choose. You don't have to risk life or limb, or even wreck your bike. Many just like to amuse themselves pottering around a course of their own devising on farm tracks or around disused chalk pits.

Proper trials bikes are stripped down to the bare essentials and kept as light as possible - they don't even have a saddle, as competitors ride standing up to maintain better balance and control.

But the Dabbers Club also like to ride vintage machines. While looking online I noticed that a man called Dougie Lampkin was seven times the world trials champion in the early 2000s. Now that surname is one I recall from way back. Sure enough, Dougie is the nephew of Arthur Lampkin, a well-known moto-cross and trials rider back in the 1960s.

But when Midsummer Fair was on in Cambridge the place to congregate was over by the "Wall of Death".

The Wall of Death originated in the USA and was imported to these shores in the late 1920s. It's said that at one time there were ten of them built along the Skegness sea front in order to train riders to perform at Billy Butlin's Holiday Camps. The Fox family was involved from the outset and has continued to this day. 

The Wall consists of a wooden cylinder which the bikes ride around, held up by friction and centrifugal force. I think they only go around 30 miles per hour (around 50 kph) but in a tight, confined space with the noise echoing around it looks much faster.

They even take a go-kart around. In the early days they sometimes used a bike with a sidecar and took lions and bears on the Wall - or else they had a monkey that balanced on the fuel tank. Needless to say - that doesn't happen any more.

Going up to meet the audience.

Setting a bad example to the younger generation!

What would you like me to do next?

No problem!

Three for the price of one.

Teamwork!

Les caught some video on his phone.....

Take care.

Having A Blast

Welcome to an anonymous grassy field, just north of the Fenland village of Haddenham. We were in the Fens for my last post, discussing matters relating to conservation - and we're doing something similar, but very different, today. For two days every year this meadow becomes a temporary encampment for a group of cheerful and slightly grubby enthusiasts and their gleaming, smokey machines. Welcome to Haddenham Steam Rally!

These ancient machines are being conserved too, though not by any national charity founded by Victorian intellectuals, and not with any support from government departments. This conservation is being carried out in old barns, sheds and garages by men in greasy overalls. 

Even when they've resuscitated these ailing beasts and got them purring sweetly, the work is never done; maintenance and polishing needs endless dedication.

I'd never even thought about it before, but obviously the brass bit at the top of the smoke stack won't stay shiny without regular attention. I think it's called a "spark arrestor" - I bet these young engineers would be able to tell me.....

Start 'em young!

As usual at this steam rally there are far more diesel tractors than steam-powered machines, though it's all part of the same grass-roots conservation movement. And don't let the tatty appearance fool you; there's still a lot of work involved in keeping these beauties on the road - or "in the furrow", if you prefer. Sourcing spare parts alone can be a major headache, even for a Fordson like the one above.

But there's also a number of rarer agricultural exhibits, like this Cletrac, built by the Cleveland Tractor Company in the USA during the 1930s. (I've just emerged from an internet rabbit hole - I entered in hot pursuit of whether Cletrac crawlers were ever imported to the UK, and came out with the fact that there's a mountain in Antarctica called Cletrac Peak, apparently in honour of the sterling work they did on one of Byrd's polar expeditions).

This grizzled warrior was part of the display about life in the Fens in the 1940s.

I love these working scale models; they must take years to complete.

But many things appeal to my photographic eye, though I'm sure the owner of this machine was puzzled as he returned to find me aiming my lens at the very place that usually cradles the seat of his trousers.

Time for lunch - we went with the Cornish pasties, saving the ice-cream for later.

Time for the commercial vehicles to enter the main ring. Each one enters in turn and is introduced by the commentator - a local man with a fine turn of phrase - before lining up across the arena.

"Travel in Style" in this Bedford OB Duple coach from just after WW2. Bedford built the chassis and the elegant coachwork was added by Duple. There are still about 70 of these on the road.

"Abels" are regular visitors to these shows and advertise "World-Wide Removals" - "and all sorts of other places!" as our friendly commentator cheerfully added.

Cars like this Daimler made their way to the main ring.

A Morris Minor. These were the British answer to the Volkswagen - there are still plenty of them on the British roads. Not many lilac ones though!

Now where did that AMC Rambler appear from? Just down the road in Haddenham, according to the programme. Despite the large number of exhibits in each category** most are based within an hour or so's drive from the showground.

(** 44 full-size steam engines, 209 vintage lorries, cars and motorbikes, 181 tractors)

As we watched the line up of Traction Engines, Steamrollers, Road Locomotives and Fairground Engines, my mind was wandering to the huge numbers of people involved in what I shall call "grass-roots conservation". Most of these vehicles belong to individual enthusiasts who devote enormous amounts of time, energy and money into preserving a little piece of the past.

But it doesn't end there; across the country there are dozens of small steam railways that are kept going by volunteers - and of course the large number of people willing to pay for a historic ride. Then there are those who pour their energies into windmills and watermills. And canals, of course.

The Ramblers' Association keep our footpath network open for all. Every village seems to have just enough volunteers to ensure the survival of our ancient churches. Then there are those who choose to pay premium prices to live in and maintain thatched cottages or old manor houses. People volunteer to work in the gardens of National Trust properties while others maintain their own gardens - you don't consider that conservation? All I can say is that without their efforts the towns and countryside would be far less attractive places.

Still others keep alive the handicraft skills which the industrial revolution all but destroyed. I'm thinking of the hand knitters, lacemakers, quilt makers, potters, wood-turners, weavers and spinners....and those who cling on to older technologies - film cameras, vinyl records, paper maps....

All this seems to have happened with little fanfare or recognition. And speaking of a "little fanfare".....our man on the mike is organising all the drivers of the engines in the main arena to give a simultaneous blast on their steam whistles.....

Not quite simultaneous perhaps, but as near as you'll get from such a band of individualists intent on "having a blast!"

Take care.

Thoughts On The Fen

 Lets say this straight away....

....most of the fens are not what the majority of people would consider beautiful. Big flat fields are farmed in the modern way with little space for nature. If the electricity company want to put up a line of pylons then no one will object, certainly not on grounds of desecrating a visually appealing landscape. And there are miles of landscape like the scene above.

When I was at school Cornelius Vermuyden and those who drained these wetlands were considered heroes of a sort; draining the peat and opening up these unproductive marshes for agriculture. Now it's beginning to look like a huge mistake. The peat dried out and within a couple of centuries simply blew away in the wind, till now there's barely enough good soil in many places to support arable farming.

The area in the above photo is called Adventurers' Fen, land which was given to those who "adventured" the capital which made the vast drainage scheme a possibility. Now it belongs to the National Trust and is the scene of a new "adventure" as they attempt to return it to something like its original state.

If they succeed - and the early signs are that they will - then agriculture's loss will be nature's gain. The level of success will depend on the size of the area which can be reclaimed and the various conservation bodies are thinking big. 

Although I'm in a hopelessly outnumbered minority I find these reclaimed areas are very beautiful (though I even find the square fields and straight concrete roads of the farmland hold an inexplicable attraction to me).

Of course, beauty itself is a slippery concept, varying not only from person to person but also over time. Before Wordsworth and the other Lakeland poets had their say the mountains of Cumbria were usually described as "horrid", which meant places to be feared and avoided. But their poems opened our eyes to their delights. Wordsworth himself wrote fierce letters complaining about the new fad for painting cottages white, much preferring the colour of the natural stone. Now everyone loves the little white farmsteads dotted over the green hills.

Wordsworth's rhyming led indirectly to our upland regions becoming National Parks while the lower, flatter lands were ignored till the recent designation of the New Forest and Norfolk Broads.

If an area's importance for wildlife was being considered rather than the scenic ideals of the Romantic movement then mudflats, estuaries, woodlands and reedbeds might be higher on the list of landscapes worth preserving. We seem to be slowly coming around to this way of thinking though it's rare indeed to see anyone out photographing or sketching around here, unless they are photographing birds through a long lens.

Government agencies also seem to have an ambivalent strategy towards these lowland areas; they agree to the protection of relatively small areas, while seeing little scenic or natural value in the rest of it. Scenically a line of pylons or a windfarm has a huge impact on such a flat area, and nature really needs the protected areas to be connected by a more sympathetic type of farming.

Having said all that, now that the nesting season has finished, the Environment Agency are out clearing the lodes (drainage channels). And this particular lode is part of the system which maintains water levels in the Sedge Fen. OK, time to stop thinking so much and instead just enjoy one of the newer spectacles of the fen.

Konik ponies. They were brought here to graze the vegetation and help to maintain the mosaic of habitats. They live a semi-wild existence here on Bakers' Fen, Burwell Fen, Adventurers' Fen and parts of Little Fen, though they are checked every day by the National Trust who manage the area.

We met and chatted with one of the staff who was on her way to check on the Highland cattle, but who couldn't resist stopping by to have a look at the Konik herd and this year's foals.

I think she said there were 70 or 80 ponies in the herd. Like all grazing animals they attract bothersome insects during the warmer months - and a retinue of Starlings only too happy to help out with grooming....

Take care.