CHAPTER 11
I was officially no longer a Rally Virgin, with the badge to prove it, so I was feeling ten feet tall as we rolled into the site entrance, which was in a field next to a motorway. There was the usual collection of hairy people at the gate, all with the badges and patches now so familiar to me, many in the woolly hats that were almost a membership badge in their own right.

“Loz?”

“Yes, love?”

“Is this an MC thing?”

“No, love. Another MCC do, but they will probably have a visit or two over the weekend”

Ken was sliding the window open.

“Wotcher, Mushy! Where do you want us?”

Hat and -beard gave him an odd sort of handshake, then pointed behind him.

“About half-way along that hedge there, Badger, if that suits. Upwind of the bonfire”

“OK, mate. We’ll get set up. Any rain forecast? Just in case of mud”

“Ah, we’ve got straw just in case, but it’s supposed to stay dry”

“Ta. See you in a bit, then”

We rumbled away, and I asked the obvious question.

“Ken?”

“Yes, duck?”

“Do you know EVERYBODY?”

He laughed, as Lorraine gave me a gentle slap to the arm.

“No, duck, though I remember his face. He had a name tag on his cut-off, like you do”

Lorraine joined in with his laughter, then caught her breath.

“That’s a lesson to remember, love. Never let on how little you know. If they want to believe you, let them. Just remember one more thing”

“What’s that?”

“Never, ever, believe your own bullshit!”

The weekend followed much the same pattern as had the Fumble, but I felt a little out of sorts. We worked hard each day running through a reasonable quantity of stock, and I had the opportunity to dance myself close to exhaustion in the marquee, even though it was all to records as there was no live band, but I felt lonely. No Rosie, no Sam, nobody at all within four years of my age. I stayed close to my two saviours, worked hard on the stand, and tried to lose myself in the music each of the two nights.

At least I got another badge to go with my little piggy.

The Saturday night brought a downpour, and it was touch and go for a few minutes as several of the host club had to put a shoulder to the van to get it through the mud at the field entrance, but it was the performance with the trailer that really delighted me. The beast had a handbrake on top of the towing hitch, and I sat behind it as our friends used an old rope I had seen in the tug-of-war competition to pull everything through the mix of slime and broken-down straw bales. They took their footing on the tarmac of the road outside, and I fairly flew through the slime, picking up a wet splash up my back as one of the wheels hit a puddle, and only just managing to pull on the brake before we hit the opposite kerb.

Everybody was laughing hysterically at my plight, but it didn’t upset me, as it wasn’t meant as a put-down. I was simply another of ‘the crew’, getting a job done and picking up a cold bath in the process. Mushy was generous, as seemed to be his way.

“We live a couple of miles away; if you want, I could drive you round and you could use the shower”

Lorraine gave my shoulder a little squeeze.

“Thanks, mate, but you’ve got fabric seats in that car, and ours are hose-down vinyl. We’re going to stop at a motel tonight, so she can shower off there. Means she can settle down for a while, have an early night”

“See you next year, then?”

“If you’ll have us!”

There was no motel, but I changed in the van, and at some services further up the M1 I washed my face and hands in the ladies’ toilets, my hair drawing some stares from some other customers. It was also the first time I heard the muttered word ‘Gyppo’. Lorraine remained calm, smiling at the other woman without looking away until she left the facilities.

“Ok, love?”

“Yeah. What did she mean?”

“Gypsies. People don’t like us, and by that I mean they lump anyone who travels about into one big hate box. Says more about them than us, so fuck them. Anyway, we should be able to let this grow out soon. Got a couple more markets to do, then it’s off to Doncaster, for a stand by the racecourse. After that, we have a long drive up to County Durham and Chester le Street. Lots of motorway driving, so it will be a bit boring, so once we are done here, do you want to see if the shop has any cassettes you’d like to listen to?”

“Will we be going anywhere near Crewe or Chester?”

“Other side of the country, almost. You done, love?”

“Yeah”

“Ok, then. Oh: we’ll be pulling off at Leicester to meet Phil with the crab blue. That should let you start growing your hair out again. You like that idea?”

“Yeah! No more headscarf!”

Lorraine looked around the toilets for other women, then lost her grin.

“You are sure about who you are, aren’t you, love?”

“Fucking hell, yes!”

She winced.

“Probably not the best way to put it, Debbie, but OK. I need to do some reading, but I have a few ideas. Now, music, and some munchies for the trip up. Not too many, though. These places are always ‘two for the price of three’, so best avoided”

There was a rack of the little boxes in the shop, and I let myself be guided by Loz as I had very little idea of who to look for. I had heard certain songs, danced myself silly to several of them, but without a clue as to who the original artists had been.

“Here’s one, love. Bluesy, bit heavy in places. They’re called ‘Cream’. Oh! You like these, don’t you?”

It was a tape by the Kinks, and it went straight into the basket along with a big bag of mint imperials, the Cream, and two cassettes by people called ‘The Moody Blues’ and ‘Sandy Denny’. Lorraine paid for it all, and we made our way back to the Commer, where Ken was lying on a patch of grass with a fresh pot of tea beside him. Lorraine roared at that.

“We just get back from using the ladies’, and you are trying to make us pee again! All right for you, isn’t it? You can just dangle by the front wheel, while us girls need to sit down. Bloody men!”

She couldn’t stop laughing for a long time, little snorts coming to her as we supped up before edging back out into the northbound traffic. Once we were settled, she handed me the tape player and the new cassettes.

“You can be disc jockey, love. You pick what we hear, for the next stretch”

Ken drove, we munched or sucked sweets, and I discovered music I loved for the rest of my life.

I already knew the Kinks’ stuff, and I could hear exactly why Lorraine had thought the Cream would appeal to me, but the high points were on the other two tapes. It was like the singing they had burst into when Ken had first played Steeleye Span, bellowing about being frolicsome and easy, simple and free, as I had moved further and further away from the hell I had escaped.

Sandy Denny had the most wonderful of voices, soaring free from the clunky little machine I held on my lap, and I was in love with it from the first notes.

The other album was odder, with a lot of what I thought of as classical music, the other two nodding along, Lorraine occasionally doing an odd little head-weave, until one song arrived, and a man with a beautiful voice started singing about nights in white satin, and Lorraine and Ken joined in with every single word of the song. I sat silent for a while, listening to them, before joining in with the sort of chorus. It came to an end, and Ken looked across to Lorraine and me.

“Who chose those tapes?”

Lorraine let me answer.

“Both of us, sort of”

“Excellent choices, duck! Now, dig into the other tapes. You’ll find one called ‘Liege and Lief’. Think you’ll like it”

It turned out to be Sandy Denny again, this time with a louder band, and I could hear why Ken loved it. I was so lost in the sound I nearly missed the fact that we were pulling back off the motorway into somewhere called Leicester Forest East, where all the shops were on the bridge over the motorway. Which I thought rather odd. Ken parked up some way from the bridge, and after an hour of waiting a rather loud bike pulled up. I was in the back of the van, under the covers, on Lorraine’s instructions.

“The more people share a secret, love, the less time it stays one. We’ll take him up for a cuppa, then get back on the road. Got an earpiece here, so you can listen to the music while you wait”

The earpiece turned out to be a flat microphone, but it worked in a sort of reverse as I lay flat in the bed, my ear pressed to the device. The ‘Liege and Lief’ band were called Fairport Convention, and I found another tape by them, as well as two by Steeleye Span, and lost myself to music until I heard the front door open and Lorraine called me out.

“Got the blue, love. Phil, the cheeky bugger, wanted to know which of us had crabs, and who we’d got them off!”

“What did you say?”

“Ken said it was for a friend we’d be seeing in Donny. No lies there, then. Ready for the off? Need a wee?”

“Fine, thanks. Am I still the disc jockey?”

“If you like. Could we have some Stones for a bit?”

That rocked us all the way to Doncaster, where our stand and tent (and the shower) went up in a paddock as I discovered exactly what ‘crab blue’ was. More driving the next day, all the way past somewhere called Scotch Corner. Our next stop was at Chester, which stopped my breathing for an instant, but it was Chester le Street, our wares laid out in one of the permanently-covered marketplaces, an Immensely high railway viaduct overhead and a castle across the river. Lorraine disappeared for a couple of hours as we worked, but she was back in time to help us pack up. The night was spent locked into the yard of an industrial unit just to the North, where I saw once again how many people Ken and Lorraine could pull a favour from.

Slow driving the next day, partly along a motorway, took us to a claustrophobic tunnel under a river, and eventually another field, another bunch of hairy people, another little badge (the Hairy Stotty this time, Lorraine giggling over the name for some reason), and one more Sunday morning watching new friends pack up and ride away.

Lorraine had wandered off again after breakfast, but she was soon back, carrying a copy of the News of the World.

She tossed it to Ken.

“Looks like Horse was right, love. Page six onwards”