Another summer over, and with it comes yet another Thatcham Classic – the little car show that I ‘organise’ each year.
This was the eighth show (I think), and each year it has grown impressively – from the 20 or so cars we had in 2006, to nearly 250 last year, but this year numbers were down slightly. Why? Well I am going to lay the blame clearly at the doorstep of the Met Office.
All week the forecasters had been, er, forecasting rain for the day of the show. On Monday it was suggesting a light drizzle would dampen proceedings – fair enough, we can cope with that, but by Wednesday it was showing heavy rain from the moment I would wake up to the moment I would go to sleep.
It wasn’t just isolated to one of the numerous weather Apps on my iPhone either – the telly, the internet and the smartphone were all singing the same song and I began to think that perhaps this year would be the first cancellation of this ‘cars in field’ event. I would be okay – I had a Land-Rover and would almost relish a trip around a soggy showground, but those with rather more ‘sensitive’ classics might struggle.
I checked the forecast once more before going to bed and made a mental note to pack the umbrella and a spare pair of boots in the morning before my head hit the pillow.
Several hours later and I awoke to the sound of torrential rain hammering down on the Land-Rover’s tilt beneath our bedroom window before drifting back off to sleep with images of an Alfa Romeo sinking in the mud…
When the alarm went off the next morning, I switched on my phone only to be welcomed by a couple of emails from food vendors that had been booked for the show: “Sorry, my stall doesn’t do well in the wind and rain”, and “You probably won’t have many people turn up so it’s not really going to be worth me coming”. This really was going from bad to worse and in my mind I decided that this would be the last Thatcham Classic – certainly that I would organize…
