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It was the sort of Saturday night when anything could happen. Rally revellers were sitting drunkenly round the roaring campfire situated on the beach of the tiny Essex island. Contrary certain opinion Mersea Island is situated in the Thames estuary, not anywhere near Liverpool. Any way it has passed midnight and discussion is the usual- life, the universe and scooters, when in from the sea swim two naked and cold figures. Slowly those around the fire notice the skinny men wading ashore, and look round. One of the swimmers looks up at them and asks "Is this England?" The fireside party goers look bemused. "I hope you've got a permit for that fire" says the other soaked and wet figure, before the two of them turn round and swim back out to sea. A true story, and an absolute classic, courtesy of the loonies from Medway SC, who are prepared to suffer in order to deliver a classic punch line. While that may sound oddball, there were even more peculiar events unfolding further across the water. Colchester DVLC's Mersea Island rally has grown at an astonishing rate over the past five years - mirroring the increase of popularity of the combined Isle of Wight rally a few weeks previous. After a quick zap up the lanes, we arrived on the island at around 10pm and followed the excellent reflective signs through to the site entrance. I ended up buying ticket 1777, which meant that the rally had once again grown past previous year's records; even at this early stage. The DVLC could quite easily pinch the Midland Bank's catch-phrase and pervert it to: ' The Listening Club' since every year they seem to take on board any constructive criticism offered, and do their best to sort it out for the following year's event. This year I wasn't happy about the top speed of my Lambretta on the way to Mersea, and I would like it for the DVLC to fix it for me to have it tuned, and get there even faster next year. Oh sorry it was only constructive requests wasn't it? Bugger. The multiplicity of happy campers forced the need for quite a few different camping areas, though sensibly access routes had been established through themfor fire engines and stuff. Since there was no space near our club apart from apedestrian access route, we did what everyone else usually does to us, andplonked a tent right in the middle, so that everyone has to carry their scoots out in the morning. It was our small bit to fight scooter theft you understand. This year's music was split between three venues; the main bar, an enlarged double marquee and the canteen building. On Friday the tent served only as achill out zone and food marquee. The title Food Marquee was considerably more grand sounding than the actuality; thanks to the DVLC being let down at the last minute by a few of the promised grub stalls. Shit apparently happens........ By the time we actually reached any of the music halls, normal pubs would be kicking out, but here the various bars were overflowing with jabbering lunatics, dancing - and like Damon Hill in his Arrows - trying to catch up with what's been happening this year. Mersea - being most like a continental rally in the UK - has a tendency to attract a plethora of our foreign scootering chums from every corner of Europe. As well as the usual mobs from France, Belgium, Germany, Holland and Austria, the furthest travelled individual was from Spain, and the furthest travelled club was from Sweden, making this a truly international affair. For the most part though, the British appear to have re-discovered their party-hard roots (or something) and were giving the foreign Johnnies more than a run for their money in the staying up stakes. The main bar, as ever, played host to traditional mod and scooterist sounds. To my limited recollection the dance floor was never empty any of the times I went in there, and for the most part was too busy to move in, let alone groove in. Outside, the courtyard was constantly awash with people, or at least until it rained later in the night, when it was just constantly a wash. By the chilling out tent there was also the possibility to strap yourself into a gyroscope thing in which you could be spun until your dinner came back for an encore. What I found hard to swallow - if you'll pardon the expression- was the fact that you weren't being dragged into this by the Spanish Inquisition, but actually expected to part with money for the privilege. At least if you spend a pound on catching a ferry to France with the newspapers you can spew your guts and at least have the consolation of being able to get some duty free. The canteen room was plenty big enough for those willing to shakedown to alternative sounds. It started with Indie before progressing through a bit of 70s and 80s Disco, to a full-on House rave. I really can't remember much about the rest of the night, except waking up in our tent after what felt like five minutes sleep, but was really much more like an hour. My kitted T5 which had been loaned to Dave and Sarah to get both of them to the rally on, was going to be a grasstrack bike for the day after Tony offered to lend me a pair of knobblies. Not really fair, but if I broke it then they could easily walk home in less than a day. The day's scootercross racing was supposed to be over by 2pm so the racers didn't miss everything that was going on around the site, but that idea went shit shape, and we still missed nearly everything. There was off-road kart timetrials on the track next to the site. Fastest time of the day went to Paddy Smith's elder son, and he went off happy with a case of lager even though he's not really old enough to drink it. During the day I managed to miss the 5 a side football, the scooter jousting (read pillow fighting - the sooner they go back to lances the better), the scooter Tug o War ( the whose clutch will last longer competition), and the free speed boat rides (80 masochists get it on in wet rubber). What I did manage to catch though was the Beer and Banana race, which the DVLC actually run as a time trial knockout competition rather than the usual Holiday in Holland style free for all. With the finalist teams having gone through several heats, and the beers being served up as pints, the riders were unsurprisingly pretty pissed and many were having to throw up to carry on. That's what we like to see. Mods and Not a Fucking Mods together, regurgitating bananas while riding scooters drunkenly in a field. Further surreality was supplied by the strange appearance of twolads on black Phileas Fogg sponsored Vespa ET4s who gave out bin liners full of free snacks to all the starving scooterists as if sent by the heavens. They weren't actually from the heavens at all you understand, just two students being paid to distribute crisps from scooters as part of Phileas Fogg's world tour promotion. Some scooterists had collared them in Colchester and persuaded them to visit the site, which must have freaked them out as much as they did to us. As afternoon progressed into early evening, the scootercross scooter was converted back into road transport and the four of us went into Colchester for food, having anticipated what the queue for evening meal in the canteen was going to be like. Even at this late stage in the day people were rolling in from as far afield as the South Coast just for one night's party. It was going to be worth it. The custom show has outgrown the main hall and this year took place on the grass outside, with the winners ending up with the usual high quality trophies. Speaking of prizes, one of the best results of the weekend was the raffle of one of the last few GP200s. It was won by Mark Leys-Geddes from London; a biker who came to the rally on a 196 bhp nitrous injected Yamaha V-Max. He came along to Mersea with the Jailbirds SC to try out a scooter rally, since they often ride their scooters to bike rallies. Mark was well chuffed to win, and by the way most of the scooterists were pleased for him. In a refreshingly unselfish gesture he sold the Lambretta on the rally and has donated half of the money to N.A. B.D. (National Association for Bikers with Disabilities) and half of it to MAG (Motorcycle Action Group). Top geezer. The first band of the evening were called Comfy Chair and from reports we were not too unfortunate to have been asleep and missed them. We did wake up in tim for Skooby though, whose Acid Jazzy style vibe had packed the tent and had a sizeable crowd jumping around at the front, even though this was still relatively early in the evening. With so many people on site there was no trouble packing every venue, from the two fires down on the beach, through the various courtyards and chill out areas and particularly both dance venues. I can vaguely recall arguing outside the canteen with someone who held the belief that Mersea has outgrown itself, and that the house music was an unsuitable waste of time. So why was he stood outside it, and not in the Soul room? Well he was there because most of his club were in the "youth club" listening to the rave music. At around 5 in the morning, an extremely knackered Marco and the other DJ in the main room tried to turn the music off, but were hassled so much that they carried on for another half hour. When it finally kicked out, most people were surprised to find the other room still jumping. It was about this time that someone first mentioned about Princess Di and Dodi Fayed being killed. At first I took it simply as a wind up, and refused to believe it. Once enough people had told me and it had sunk in, it smelled fishier than Billingsgate market in the height of summer. Call me paranoid if you like, but if that was an accident then I'm a Frenchman. Jon Betts' brother summed it up well. In the future when people ask him where he was when he heard about the death of Di and Dodi, he will proudly and honestly be able to say he was picking up used condoms around a campsite on Mersea Island. Nobody knows why he was doing that, maybe he collects them. As ever Mersea 97 was a top event, and still capable of entertaining an ever increasing number of punters. The catering - it has been promised- will be better next year. |
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