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Scarborough
(March 12th-14th 2004)
The few memories i have of my previous rallies to Scarborough are of sleeping rough and being extremely cold when it started to snow and we all ended up in a wooden allnight cafe on the sea front huddled up with what seemed liked hundreds of other freezing mods back in either 1982 or 83, so when i woke up on Friday morning and looked out of the window and saw that it was snowing, it brought all those horrible thoughts back. After my little tumble on that patch of ice last week we had already decided that we were going to go up in the car, picking up Nigel and Janice on the way, so bang on 9am, myself and Dawn set off up the M1, M18 & M62 to Howden, picked up our passengers and continued onto Scarborough arriving about 12 noon. We soon found our hotel on the sea front which was close to the Corner Complex so we wouldn't have too far to walk back at night, just up a bloody great steep hill. Also in our hotel were some of the Monsters sc and also some more of the V.F.M* roadcrew, which we later found out was not quite as good as we thought it would be, but i will tell you about that in abit.
Anyway bags unpacked we set of into town for a bite to eat and a drink or three and after deliberating for ages ended up down in the harbour area. I phoned Tony 1shirt to see where they were drinking, so after we were all fed we set of to witherspoons to find all the Carlton Blues lot. Now for those of you that dont know Scarborough it is a bit of a climb from the harbour/seafront so we arrived at wetherspoons courtesy of a local taxi company. Inside we found quite a few familiar faces, too many to mention, so we said our hellos and refreshed ourselves with some local brew.
The nights activities were taking place at the Corner Complex where there was two rooms for our pleasure, one being the Boss Tunes room playing ska all night which remained almost empty all night which was great because that was where i was doing my bit for V.F.M that night and had bugger all to do except check those that came in had a stamp on their hand to prove they had paid to get in. There was no band playing tonight just top tunes mixed by the usual V.F.M dj's. The night was spent working and greeting old friends, some of whom i hadn't seen since Bridlington or Cala Gran.
Saturday morning, after brekkie, the sun shining, we called a taxi and went up to Kev Walsh's custom show and trade fair which were being held at the Scarborough Leisure Centre, which was half way to bloody Filey so we were glad we got a taxi there. All the usual stalls were there, but the custom show was poorly entered. There were about 10 scooters none of which i thought were new. This was dissappointing as i thought there might of been a few scooters that had spent the winter being stripped and repainted. Perhaps they have all been saved for Morecambe.
We soon found ourselves back in witherspoons in the cripples corner, as i had been forced to use my walking sticks as my leg had swollen up again, so nestled in with the 3-4 others in the corner who had walking sticks. It almost seemed as if this years fashion accessory was a walking stick as there was quite a few people around town with them. We then went back to the harbour area to meet up with the Carlton Blues SC & the Edinburgh Blues in the Lancaster pub.
We arrived at the do early that night so that we could get a table so i could rest my aching leg. Again there was 2 rooms but tonight the other room was being used as a soul room. We were soon joined by around 10-11 other Brewers members that had ridden up that day. Their journey had been quite eventful as Nicks lammy performed just like a typical lammy and their journey took them eight & half hours. The band tonight were Basketcase from Nottingham. They are starting to make a name for them selves and are infact booked to perform at Brewers Droop this year. They went down exceptionly well and the dance floor was packed as they did their covers of punk & new wave and generally had a good laugh.
We arrived back at our hotel about 2:30 am and waited about an hour for the pizzas we had ordered, chatting to a group of scooterists from Grimsby as we waited. Slowly all the Monsters & the V.F.M crew arrived back and went off to somebodys room to carry on partying. I said to Dawn i pitied the people in the room next to them. Anyway pizza eaten we retired to bed only to discover the poor buggers in the next room was us and it took us a bit of time to get to sleep over the noise from the rowdy sods next door.
We grudgingly awoke Sunday morning and went for brekkie and i told our rowdy neighbours off for keeping us awake and was told it served me right as i had kept them awake in Prague with my snoring. We then packed up our gear, said our goodbyes and set off for home via Nigel & Janices again.
The first rally off the year was an excellent start and if they are all this good then we are in for another great season. I just hope they are warmer than it was in Scarborough.
Safe scootering.........Andy (BBSC)ii