Yamaha Owners Club Rally

Summer Rally 28 May 1982

                   

- Phil the Spill

This was the second time I was going to a rally at the More Arms in Shropshire. I had, by now, been to a couple of rallies organised by the same club, but held in different locations. This was the first time I had been to a known location for a rally held by a different club, (but not the last).

Not everyone in the Owners' Club was happy with the Surrey Branch holding the rally last year, but this year's was a disaster. This is what happens when you let some friends of the head office staff arrange a rally! It seems they let anyone who asked get tickets. One group thought it was fine to make a bonfire out of fence posts, a thought not shared by the field owner, who complained to the pub landlord, who cancelled the rally! We were told to pack up and leave first thing Saturday morning.

Well, the Mitsui Diehards weren't going to let a little thing like that spoil a weekend. We had driven nearly 200 miles to be there this Bank Holiday weekend, and we had no intention of going home just yet. I forget whose idea it was to check out campsites in Welshpool, just over the border and ten miles away, but check it we did, and found a site willing to let a bunch of bikers in for a couple of nights.

A couple of us popped back to the More Arms, to tell a few friends of the developments, and found that the landlord had relented slightly and had agreed to let us stay in the camping field, as long as there were definitely no fires, no games and no activities on the pub premises. We thought our plan was better, some friends agreed and we went off to Welshpool and had a really fun camping weekend.

I seem to recall the club ceased trading not long after this event.

- Phil (the Spill) Drackley