P-Type Lea-Francis
Roger Tolson’s delightful and effective P-Type special (now fitted with a Meadows 4EC engine) prior to the start of the rally. Photo: John Blundell

When the LFOC last ran a scatter rally seems to be lost in the mists of time, so it was with some trepidation that Sarah and Colin Poynter decided to run one on the Saturday of the annual Broughton Park weekend.

 

Fears were that folk who were not used to the old style of plot and bash rallies would be daunted by having to use map references and find their way by paper map instead of being told what to do by the annoying lady in the satnav. And what if it rained?

Luckily the day dawned bright, sunny but not too hot and we foregathered at the Great Western Arms, Aynho Wharf for an excellent light lunch.

Plotting

 

On first reading the instructions seemed as comprehensible as those for an Ikea flat pack. However the trick was to read every word slowly and things soon started to make sense. We decided that the Tews, Duns Tew, Great Tew and Little Tew showed promise so pottered off. The agreement with wife Diana was that I had to keep calm and drive slowly. Much to our surprise when we were going through Fritwell we spotted by chance a small chapel that we hadn’t noticed on the map. Our first clue! Diana used her newly acquired Romer skills to find the map reference (I could have used OS Locate on my phone but that didn’t seem to be in the spirit of things (or, indeed the rules—Ed.)). So we continued on a beautiful meander through the brown stoned Oxfordshire villages, each tidier and more monied than the last, collecting clues.

Outside the church at Duns Tew there was a welcoming banner for the rally (so kind of them!) and finally we reached Little Tew where I was entranced to see an old Bedford van complete with period trolley jack waiting to take the family, dog, picnic and buckets and spades to the seaside.

As it tends to do, time suddenly speeded up, and so we headed back through Sandford Martin and the Bartons to the Holt Hotel to hand in our entry. It was marked in front of us (just like being in school!) and we found to our horror that we had misread a gravestone.

We felt that we had little chance of doing well so were agreeably surprised to learn at the end of an excellent dinner that we had won!

Very many thanks to all for an excellent weekend.

Richard Houlgate

Bedford van

Navigational Scatter Rally Results

1st Overall:                                           Richard and Diana Houlgate

1st Lower Ford Street Novice:              Bill and Jo Richardson

1sr Much Park Street Novice:              Jeff and Gillian Bailey

1st Much Park Street Expert:               John Blundell and Charles Teall

1st Non-LeaF (MGA Class):                Nigel and Sue Fowler

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