11/09/2026
Sharing this with permission from Don Barrow ....... written by Don.
I wrote this piece again as a comment on the 'Golden Years Of Rallying as created by Robert Griffin' page, but Alas is was rejected, so here it is on my own post.....................................John Hill – Caravan Rally
During the mid 1960s I received a phone call from a rally acquaintance John Hill, asking if I would navigate him on a competitive caravan road rally which was organised by the Caravan Club. John Bloxham and Richard Harper were the joint Clerk of Course and it was a 200 mile road rally with Special Sections, so you can imagine it was going to be a good all night thrash with a caravan in tow.
John was going to use a big BMW with a caravan loaned from Bessacar Caravans and he had arranged for a friend of his to act as a passenger/pusher if needed, it turned out he was a Policeman (PC) too!
Starting at Mallory Park with a few high speed laps we eventually started the Derbyshire high speed road sections. We were in good form and were going great guns. Around 03:00 hrs in the early morning we steamed into a Time Control where the Marshal pointed out we had no lights on the caravan. John jumped out to inspect, bad news, the caravan plug had come out of car socket and had been thrashing around hitting the road. There was only a bunch of wires and no plug. So off we sped into the next section where I pointed out we were due into a Petrol stop at Friden in about 30 minutes. Maybe we could get one there.
At the Friden Control I dashed in and booked in on time and collected my new ‘plot & bash’ route card, I started plotting when John and his Policeman friend jumped aboard and off we sped. Around the corner was a street light, John pulled up and they both jumped out to fix the electrics. After about 8 minutes we were off again where it was announced the caravan now has lights.
Going like the clappers to make up some time, I asked whether they had managed to get a new plug, yes it’s all fixed OK. I remarked, wow, that was lucky, how much did they charge you, there was a very long silence, then PC 49 piped up from the back of the car, ‘We cut it off the Marshals caravan’.
It was a long event with two Special Sections on Derbyshire where we got baulked on one of them by a Marshal towing his own caravan at a leisurely pace. Needless to say we did not fair very well and were way down in the results..................................................As I used to manufacture the Don Barrow Map Magnifier Light (Some folk called them Pottie's) I thought you might also like to read this piece by Bob Lyons....Quote from Bob Lyons -
During the caravan road rallying days in the late 1960s, we were sponsored by a caravan manufacturer, a guy called Ken Crewe, who made "The Mini Victor Caravan" specifically built to be towed behind the original BMC Mini. When I was first introduced to Ken, who knew as much about rallying as I did about caravans and just before our first event. I asked him what should I bring along. He replied "just your maps". I said "What about my Poti"? - "No need, we've got one, we're short of nowt"! I took it with me anyway. When he turned up, to travel to the start, intrigued, I asked him "Where's the Poti ?". He replied. "In't caravan, bloody hell, you don't need a sh*te already!
(Photo source National Motor Museum added by Finding My Old Mini Cooper S)
