Rally - Memories

Crikey …. Was it really a year ago? This popped up on my social media feed from a year ago today. Hard to believe that 12 months have passed. Surprisingly the wee book sold so well I have had to print another couple of hundred. In fact there’s another order in this morning from the depths of Argyll so the interest is still there.

Meanwhile the draft text for my next big book – the Scottish Rally Championship 2000-2009 - is almost complete, just a few things to check then a complete read-through before finalising. In the interests of honesty and accuracy I had to phone Dave Weston last week about one incident and phoned Euan Thorburn this morning about another, but he wasn’t in so I’ll need to phone back! Very thoughtless of him. And if you want to know why such phone calls were needed you’ll have to read the book!

However that’s still some time away, the photographs have to be sorted out, selected, scanned and then captioned and that is a humungous operation, not just hundreds of foties, but thousands of the rascals. Having said that, it really is quite a joy looking back through all the old pics but all too often much time is lost as I have to sit back and savour the moment.

And that’s what these books are all about. Bringing up memories from times long past, and even not so long ago, reminding everyone of their own personal stories to recall, tell and re-tell. The books are just a spark generator for such hankerings.

In fact that was the subject of a conversation I had last Sunday morning whilst watching the ‘Flying Scotsman Rally’ pass through Forrestburn Hillclimb. There I was standing on a hillock under blue skies overlooking the picturesque M8 winding it’s way through the sunlit hills around Shotts while a local farmer spread slurry in the adjoining field adding its own perfume to the fragrances of burning petrol, rubber and clutches.

It was whilst savouring these countryside aromas that I was accosted by another spectator, one Peter Martin Esq, ex-codriver to the famous and notorious, and some others, and he asked how the latest tome was progressing. Like many of the readers’s opinions already expressed he wants more pics in the next volume, even if they come at the expense of the text. Whilst it’s good to have an account of how each rally was conducted, he reckons it’s the pics that are the big interest especially the personages depicted but he did add one additional nibble of food for thought, he thinks I should be less formal! He thinks the captions should be cheekier – but I couldn’t possibly do that, could I? That surely is for the final book when I can just compile all the bits and foties that didn’t make the ‘formal’ documentaries - and then I’ll publish the ‘out-takes’ and be damned!

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