Margot on the Moor

A flask of tea made, and a couple of cakes packed, we set off on an intrepid adventure to Dartmoor (only a few miles from home). Slowly trundling along the dual carriageway, I watched as the lorries and caravans loomed up behind before pulling out to overtake. It was a scenario we would have to get used to. As we headed closer to the moor along smaller roads, I reflected on the constant background panic I was experiencing; would we break down around the next bend? I wondered if I would ever shake that feeling. After what felt like hours we arrived at our destination- a car park high up on Dartmoor. The earlier sun had disappeared and the grey clouds looked ominously menacing. We parked Margot at a jaunty angle to make the most of the views and climbed out, feeling pretty pleased with ourselves (and the exhaust) for making it this far. A couple of quick photos later, the bitter wind had driven us back inside again to enjoy a cup of tea and a piece of cake. We sat in the back of Margot and looked out at a few bedraggled walkers hurrying by with their hoods up. We laughed at the thought of what we must look like to the outsiders; a couple of mad old people in their ancient van. Still, we were happy, munching our cake and staring at the other vehicle in the car park- a solitary ice cream van with no customers. Eventually, we decided that was enough excitement for one day and prepared to head home. Starting the engine brought us straight back to reality- the exhaust was not as 'fixed' as we had hoped. The anti-socially deep rumbling sound was back with a vengeance. We limped home slowly, sinking lower in our seats as we drove into the estate, hoping that nobody would notice Margot making such a racket. Exhaust issues aside, we had made it. Margot had been on her first outing and all three of us had survived!

Reality dawns

Listening to the wind howling and the rain lashing against the windows didn't bode well for Margot's first night on the drive. By morning she was wet. Very wet. So, the roof lights definitely needed sorting. The exhaust had definitely blown. The window seals definitely needed attention. We had our first list and a horrible feeling that it would grow considerably longer. In the short term, the best we could manage was buying economy shower curtains from the supermarket to prevent the interior from becoming sodden. Tom decided that he would attempt to patch up the exhaust for the time being, so that at least we could drive it up the road without disturbing the neighbours! The first half of the weekend involved Tom lying underneath the van, with a Haynes manual in one hand, doing a fairly convincing job of looking like he knew what he was doing. To my utter amazement, by mid-afternoon he announced that the exhaust was fixed. Plus it had stopped raining for the first time in days. Time to take Margot on her first little outing...

Mungo becomes Margot

The week before we collected her, we'd had a lovely weekend away in a hotel in the New Forest with a couple of friends. We savoured every moment of the luxury, knowing that we would find it hard to justify many weekends away like this in the future once we had a perfectly good campervan to sleep in. By this point I had already begun to research vintage 1970s fabrics and memorabilia on-line and stumbled across the existance of a little shop close to where we were staying in the New Forest. We dragged our friends along to seek it out and had great fun looking through the treasure trove of household items from our childhoods. It also sold vintage clothing and I was nearly talked in to buying a flambouyant green floaty 70s dress that we likened to something that Margot from The Good Life would wear. However, I thought it might be bad luck to buy something before we had officially got the campervan, plus why on earth did I need a green dress and when would I wear it?!! I don't really do dresses. Anyway, the Margot dress was referred to throughout the weekend, and we even caught an episode of The Good Life in our hotel room whilst getting ready for dinner one evening. On our return home, I was telling a friend the tale of the green dress that I didn't buy (we have thrilling conversations!) when she uttered the suggestion 'Why don't you call the van Margot?' In hindsight it seemed obvious, and so much more fitting for a lady than Mungo. Margot was born.

She comes home

Finally, she managed to pass her MOT and Tom arranged to catch the train up to Taunton to pick her up. Unfortunately it happened to be one of the rainiest days of the year which was likely to come as a bit of a shock to a campervan who'd had a roof over her head for the last four years. Relieved to make it home in one piece, Tom's only observation about the slow journey was that the overtaking lorries had made her wobble a bit!

Inspecting her on the driveway was probably the point at which our steep learning curve really started. Lessons learned so far:

1. Never assume that if you buy a van it will come with keys to lock it.
2. Never assume that the exhaust will have survived intact on the journey home.
3. Never assume that glazed roof skylights will actually stop the rain from coming in.

Undaunted, we made a cup of tea and sat inside our campervan looking out at the neighbours. In fact, our immediate neighbour came in to join us. Mungo had her first official visitor! The three of us looked around and watched forlornly as the rain trickled down the windows, both outside and in. When we went back inside it felt like leaving a tiny kitten outside all alone; would she be okay out there in the dark and the wet all night long?

Failure

1. We failed in our mission to get tickets for Carfest. 

2. Mungo (temporary name only remember) failed in her mission to pass her MOT.

Things could only get better.

More waiting

After leaving numerous unreturned messages concerning the progress of our purchase, we began to wonder if we had imagined the whole thing. Had we entered a parallel universe where we had behaved recklessly by buying a campervan, where beige and brown were the hip'n'happening colours and the 1970s was the coolest decade ever? Was it all a dream? Did we have to return to the harsh reality of a reliable Ford Focus and a holiday cottage on the Moors with a flushing toilet and hot running water? Jolted out of our bubble, we simply got on with the boring formalities of sorting out documentation, tax, insurance etc. Or rather Tom did; I was back on 'mission festival' in an effort to keep the dream alive. It had become evident fairly early on that it would be a big ask for the campervan to make it all the way to Ireland, not to mention a big expense. So the Electric Picnic was out, for this year at least. However, with near perfect timing, Chris Evans began to hype up his new Children in Need festival- Car Fest. It sounded right up our street (or at least in our part of the country.) Cars galore for Tom, The Great British Bake Off for Barbara, and good bands for us both. Chris Evans had even said on the radio that it was the perfect starter festival for 'festival virgins'. We had to try and get tickets. So, we had two things to look forward to: getting tickets to Carfest and hearing that the campervan had passed its MOT...

What's in a name?

The most common question we had when telling people what we had bought (after they had stopped laughing) was 'What are you going to call it?' Apparently all the coolest campervans have names. I was pretty convinced that our Bedford was a female (don't ask me how, just call it female intuition!) but that didn't seem to deter people from making all kinds of suggestions. Below is a selection of the best and worst that our friends and family could come up with...

• Brian (because it goes at a snail's pace)
• Andy (??)
• Trippy
• Portaview
• Farrah (as in Fawcett)
• Florence
• Bernie
• Cilla (because it has already given them a 'lorra lorra laughs'!)
• Rusty (from a witty 10 year old)
• The Yellow Peril (my dad is colour blind)
• Daffodil (ditto)
• David (after 1970s runner David Bedford)

Good efforts, but none of the names really grabbed us. We decided to wait until we had her before making a final decision. However, after a bit of research on 1972 hit records, I liked the name Mungo (as in Jerry). I know, I know, I said she was female. She still is. But I think Mungo is a cool name, with a definite 70s edge to it. So the campervan we didn't actually have yet did at least have a provisional name. But it was subject to change...

Waiting

It's a strange feeling to have bought something yet have nothing to show for it - other than some smelly cheese and a lovely, quirky book that I'd treated myself to, entitled 'My Cool Campervan' which is full of inspiring pictures to encourage me that we haven't just purchased a pile of junk. Our campervan has POTENTIAL. I had begun to discover a whole new world of 1970s retro websites and online shops selling vintage fabrics. Our campervan was going to be transformed to its former glory with groovy 70s curtains, the whole works! There was just the small matter of the campervan passing its MOT. In hindsight, not that likely considering it's 40 years old and hasn't been on the road for four years. Then things grew ominously quiet from the vendor's end of things as we began to attempt to unravel the minefield of tracking registration documents from long-dead previous owners.

Taking the plunge

Eventually we made it back to the show room which was actually more of a show barn. Full of expensive, shiny classic cars, it was more impressive than some car museums I've been dragged around in my time. Whilst we were having our little petrol drama, an elderly man had arrived after driving from Lincolnshire to view a car. Being nosy, I asked the vendor if he was expecting the man to buy the car. 'I would expect so as it's the only one in the country' was his reply. This spoke volumes about the kind of business this was; a specialist, high end dealer of beautifully restored classic vehicles. Plus one brown Bedford camper van. As much as Tom would have liked to make an offer on the gleaming purple E-type Jaguar, we both knew that there was only one vehicle in the place that we had any chance of owning. We were building up to making an offer but had one more feature to investigate...the awning. Luckily, it didn't disappoint. Large, stripy and intact, it had a definite ice-cream van feel to it. Perfect, we had to buy it. 

There shortly followed a period of rubbish negotiating over the price, with Tom displaying pathetic haggling skills that we shall gloss over. The upshot was that we parted having agreed to purchase it; we were to be the new owners of a 1972 Bedford CF camper van! 

On a high, we stopped off on the way home at the Exeter Food Festival to celebrate in the way we know best- by eating and drinking. It was here that we made our first purchase specifically for our new campervan...a huge piece of smelly cheese. The cheese maker said that it would taste better if left to mature for a few more weeks. Ideal - cheese and wine overlooking the sea would be a fitting first meal in our little brown van. Now all we needed to do was to await the MOT and arrange collection.

A test drive with a twist

Love at second sight? Not really, it still looked shabby; it still looked brown. There was still a dead wasp on the dashboard. But we were looking forward to going for a drive. The vendor drove us (Barbara safely in the passenger seat, Tom swinging dangerously around in the back) along a few country lanes before turning around in a lay by. Now it was Tom's turn to drive. All went smoothly, if somewhat jerkily, until the gear stick seemed to start behaving in a less than cooperative manner. Tom's confusion led him to question if he was in the right gear, to which a distant voice from the back of the van suggested that we may have run out of petrol. Oh. Yes. We. Had. So, there we were, stranded on a country lane with only just enough space for other vehicles to squeeze by us. The slightly embarrassed vendor set off on foot to find some petrol, with a cheery 'Well, you might as well have a good look around now!' Not quite the way I had envisaged our second viewing but we did have a good look around all the nooks and crannies(holidaying in the 1970s seemed to require alot of cupboard space!) The added bonus of running out of petrol meant that we got an unexpected taste of possible future scenarios. I decided that my concerns about an older vehicle being unreliable were probably unwarranted; this being stranded lark was a doddle!

Pipped at the post?

We decided to go for a second viewing. However, we had competition. It appeared that a couple of young lads were interested in it and had also arranged a second viewing - but they had a mechanic in tow. If that didn't result in a sale then we were welcome to go and see it again. Now it seemed as if we were in a no-win situation; if we were to have a chance of buying the camper van it would be as a direct result of a mechanic advising somebody else not to touch it with a bargepole. Game over. Then my suspicious and cynical side kicked in (it's never far from the surface at the best of times). I began to doubt if these other potential buyers even existed. Either way though, we thought that was it. We'll never know for sure, but mysteriously the other buyers faded into the background with mutterings of not being able to afford the insurance. Maybe the mechanic really did warn them off but by this point we were following our hearts rather than our heads, excited to get a second chance. Off we set for visit number two, and this time we weren't going to laugh at it.

A change of heart

Despite our misgivings, we began to get carried away with the whole idea of owning a camper van. The idyllic scenarios were building in our minds...drinking wine under the awning watching the setting sun, making a warming drink after an afternoon bodyboarding, pootling along country lanes towards beautiful empty campsites. And of course, doing the whole festival scene in our uber-trendy vintage/ retro 70s styled campervan. We spent a few days egging each other on whilst testing out reactions from friends and family. 'Go for it' seemed to be the most common response although we quickly got used to the complete bewilderment and hysterical laughter that also accompanied the positivity. Indeed, there was something about the laughter that strengthened our desire for the ridiculed brown van. An air of protectiveness grew around it; the idea that we could rescue it and make it loved again was appealing. And if that meant people would laugh at us then so be it...we could handle it!

Love at first sight?

A week later and we set off to view the old, brown camper van. Expectations were not high; it was viewed more as a mission to get it out of our system, rule it out and move on. The viewing didn't get off to the best of starts when we arrived to be met by a huge pair of locked iron gates and nobody in sight. A phone call cleared that up and we climbed out of our modern, safe, middle-of-the-road car to see a vision in browny-beige trundling towards us. It perhaps wasn't particularly good manners to laugh as the vendor jumped out to greet us, but the sight of the clunky brown van rattling noisily in our direction had amused us! We were left to look around and on closer inspection I think it's fair to say we were both somewhat underwhelmed. My two observations were that it smelt and it was wobbly. In fact, our final discussions with the vendor were entirely focussed on getting accurate directions to a recommended pub for lunch. At the last minute something prompted me to jump back in to the camper van to take a few photos. Pointless really because we weren't going to buy it, were we?

The beginning

It all started  with a mini mid-life-crisis over the annual question of what to do in the summer. As much as I love spending a week in a cosy cottage with bracing walks, tea shops and country pubs round every corner, I wanted to do something that made me feel less...well....old. So, what better way to recapture that youthful feeling than to go to a music festival? Especially as the whole music festival scene had passed me by in my actual youth. Further research led me to The Electric Picnic in Ireland which seemd to tick all the right boxes (bands I'd heard of, comedy and food). Now I may want to feel young again but I'm not stupid...there was no way I was prepared to totally rough it in a tent in the middle of a muddy field. However, posh camping, glamping, yurts, eco pods and tipis began to catch my attention. I was getting pretty enthusiastic about staying in a beautifully named 'cloudhouse', until I discovered a tiny picture of one hidden in the corner of a website which could not disguise the fact that it was in reality a very basic tent with a hole in the roof. My temporary enthusiasm waned further when I began to look at the prices of the various 'glamping' options. At least £100 a night appeared to be the going rate. Undaunted, I began to investigate the idea of hiring a camper van. Before long I was seduced by gleaming vans, vintage interiors and quirky names. However, it quickly became apparent that if we wanted to hire a van for a week (the minimum rental period in high season) then we would be saying goodbye to at least £800. 

Resigned to feeling old again (but comfortable and with some money left) the ever practical, solution-seeking Tom passed me the laptop with the soon-to-be immortal words 'Shall we buy this?' There before my eyes was an old, brown camper van. Weirdly, I didn't do my usual thing of ignoring him or asking him what on earth he was thinking. It kind of appealed...