Bagwell Farm 2 2023
Such is the pull of this rally, Kevin came down all the way from Scotland for the 2nd year and Karen, my Sis along with Louise bough the 1965 Sprite 400 from Barnsley, South Yorkshire
We had caravans from 10ft up to 21ft, top and bottom of the field flanked by the 1961 Airstream and the 1954 Silver Streak, 2 1965 Sprite 400s parked side by side, 3 beautiful vintage tents, Phil’s very eye catching orange trailer tent and period awnings aplenty (including 4 brightly coloured early 1970s very lairy early 1970s Poulards – a sight I’m sure has not been seen since the 1970s)
The weather was beautiful, and being near the sea we were treated to glorious blue skies all weekend (and the week for those of us who stayed)
Friday night Mike’s rude/ridiculous names – true or false? Went down really well with everyone and raised many a snigger. This was particular part of the quiz was held in honour of member Howard Evans, as Howard and Marion had trounced everybody else on the rally in 2022 On the ‘rude place names’ earning a full 100% score. Our Retro quiz of picture place names was fun and the picture song titles were a hoot. The quiz was billed, as ever as just a bit of fun, well, that lasted around 5 minutes before it all got very competitive!! Friday was won by ‘Diddy Vans’ a very exclusive band of 10ft caravan owners and Saturday by ‘Shiny Happy People’ the Airstream/Silver Streak team
Although the weather was beautiful it was somewhat windy, this meant I had to shout on the Saturday quiz night as it was so windy our rally goers in front of me couldn’t hear but I’m pretty sure the regular caravanning folk at the bottom of the site could hear me loud and clear! The weather meant some of my planned outdoor games had to be cancelled… there’s always next year
Saturday we were treated to a brilliant musical quiz featuring intros courtesy of Jayne Scott, difficult (unless you were Phil! Who excelled) and later the speaker was hacked by a very naughty Ian Quarry who kept playing tunes Jayne wasn’t expecting – I knew something was up as his team were sniggering so much!
Part of the fun was to be making and flying paper airplanes, we did this in the evening just for fun (only it wasn’t, was it, James and Anne!) this again got all too serious and James’ launch technique had to be seen to be believed, and yes he did beat the rest of us with the greatest distance achieved
I Organised a group booking at the Swanage steam railway on the Monday as there were still quite a few of us on site, take up was pretty much everyone on site (was expecting about 10!) we set off in a fleet of cars full of rally goers and arrived at Norden near Corfe Castle to find a carriage reserved just for us which was fantastic. The atmosphere on board was fantastic, in fact such was the excitement in the Retro Camping Club carriage (it was official -we had a sign in the window made for us by the fantastic people at the Swanage Railway) that I felt like a School Teacher on a daytrip – it was absolutely ace!
Notable incidents:-
Ian Quarry after a 5 hour drive in his lovely 1960s Mini traveller cracked open a can of cider on arrival (more may have followed?) and later decided to take his somewhat dicey Bickerton folding bike down to the toilet block and came back with blood, oil and bicycle chain ‘tooth prints’ on both shins.
Our ‘Name that Kazoo-une’ where each Quiz team were give a Kazoo to knock out a tune good enough for the others to guess. Chris completely owned this with a animated performance so good I completely forgot what his tune was!
Pesky ants getting into 'Reg' and eating the lovely blueberry cake Karen had bought down all the way from TVs Yorkshire Farm as one of the quiz prizes? Put it outside to bait them away from my caravan and they suddenly were interested in such a nice cake, I though was still tempted to eat it, ants or no ants
Despite there being a board up on site showing who was going to the Railway and that we were leaving from the station by Corfe Castle ‘somebody’ took the ‘Swanage Railway’ too literally and with Graham riding shotgun headed to the wrong end of the line, we waited on our train, and waited for them to arrive before somebody phoned and found what had occurred… oops. All was resolved later courtesy of the lovely Swanage Railway staff and they both still got their return trip on the steam train, just the opposite way to the rest of us!
My vision was to create the nearest I could to the old days of being on site, with fun that was just about being together. This rally is a deliberate get away from it all and that includes getting away from the 21st Century, just for a couple of days, or a week. I Hope I achieved this – I know I did for me. We laughed, we cried with laughter, and some of us just cried for Howard Evans and my own brother in Law Mick Ashton who both should have been with us enjoying the fun but were cruelly taken by cancer a few months before
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