Twits Rally

2nd February 1990 - Twits MCC

Following the runaway success of the Twits' first rally, plans got mislaid and forgotten about, and it took 13 years for them to arrange their second. The tradition was therefore set that there would always be a 13-year gap between rallies.

TWITS rally II 2nd - 4th February 1990 Northamptonshire Site Send £5.00 + SAE Be one of the priviledged few 500 limit PREBOOK ONLY No cars or pigs Strictly no entry without a ticket Book before 8th December Tickets sent out beginning of January First come, first satisfied. Unusual awards, Disco, Beer Tent, Band Saturday night, Special Raffle, Vegetables catered for, Free! No, not the rally - the tea and coffee stupid! Special drag racing, Silly games, Friday trad rally, Good Food, Scrambling course, Bonfire

Somehow, I managed to blag a free ticket for this, by offering my CB radio gear to the organisers so they could keep gate and Rally Control in contact with each other, there being quite a distance between the two.

Friday was the day after some very high winds in the area, which did not blow the marquee over. It blew it away. I believe it was retrieved about half a mile away. This made re-installing it pretty much out of the question and everything was relocated into the very much smaller catering tent, resulting in pretty much all the scheduled entertainment out of the question.

Even though Friday was calmer than Thursday, I still felt the need to tie my tent to my bike, having propped that up with bits of tree trunk I found littering the site, as the ground was rather wet, and the drizzle hadn't let up. Quite a few others were tying theirs to bits of vegetation that had survived the main gale.

This, being the first night, was not full of the whole turnout but we were still a bit crammed into the smaller venue, where there was some music and the food and beer, but the tables and most of the original seating had been packed away. The field was also quite muddy, which had the usual effect on late-night arrivals. Although the wind was less violent that the previous night, it was still a noisy and rattly night in my little zit-tent.

On Saturday, the winds died down somewhat, but there was still a bit of drizzle. The marquee had been taken away by then. 'Uncle Peter' from the Brighton & District MCC turned up on his mega-combo, which apparently had to be licensed in Sweden, as the design was illegal for UK-based vehicles.

With the rally equipment vastly overstretched, many of us made the trek into the nearest pub, which was down in the village at the edge of the farm, and spent a few hours making more use of their facilities than anyone had expected.

After this, we trekked back to the field and filled the catering tent with bodies. Taking no chances, people had used the trip to the village to stock-up on supplies for the night. Some people seemed to have difficulty standing up in the rather slippery environment of the tent.

There was no stage, so when the no T-shirt contest started up, most of the audience could not see anything. I was able to reach over most people, but still missed some of one young lady's charms, but as far as I recall there were only two contestants.

Not long after that, the mud wrestlers started up, and the rest of us just managed to keep out of their way until they got whatever it was out of their systems.

Sunday morning was still a bit blowy, so packing the tents was a bit of a chore, and the field was even muddier than before, but I wasn't too far from the entrance. I collected my CB gear and made my way home.

Keeping to the new tradition, the next rallies were in 2003 and 2016.

- Phil (the Spill) Drackley