Hoddom 9^th/10^th/11^th August 1996

After consulting Gerry’s diary I find the first Hoddom Rally was a “bit of a wet

affair”, to start off with. (See wet rallies in Scotland have got nothing to do with Tom Anstruther, he wasn’t even there) We had to put the Dandy up in a bit of a hurry to avoid the rain. It was still raining when we went to bed; it rained for most of the night on both the Thursday and Friday and well into the Saturday morning. Although it did clear up later in the day and the rest of the weekend was fine and clear. Most people arrived, there were 19 units on the Rally, on the Friday afternoon. We were helping out with the stewarding until Charlie and Brenda Needham arrived. We spent most of the “free” time visiting the local towns, Moffat, Langholm and Annan.

The weekend was memorable for two reasons, firstly there were five members with us for the first time, Bob Reid was our “first single-handed” member, or at least the first one I had seen at a rally. Also for the Saturday evening, I seem to recall, was memorable for the magnificent night sky. A number of us went down to the on-site restaurant and bar and on the way back through the site we had a wonderful display of shooting stars set against a pitch-black sky. Being in such an isolated position away from any light pollution made it all the better.

 Ray Tims.