By the time all of this was decided, the days
and weeks were marching on and we were already well into March, with less than
3 months to go to the 66th Vingt Quatre Heures du Mans. It was all very well saying that we would go but I still had to make arrangements to get us on the M.R.I. coach. As you might imagine, I was on the telephone to M.R.I.
as soon as Peter confirmed his intentions and was relieved to learn they
still had places available. I had been
a little worried, as all of the press reports were suggesting that the number of fans
travelling from Britain to France for the
race this year was likely to be huge, perhaps even larger than when the Jaguars
were racing in the late 80’s. My fear
had been that the trip would already be sold out. So, two seats were quickly booked for us on Motor Racing International’s Tour LM2 to
Le Mans. This was actually the same tour as Peter and
I had taken with the company back in 1992 and 1993. The basic tour cost £135 plus travel insurance. In
addition all those travelling on the tour were required to purchase either
cabins or reclining seats on the ferry and as I've never been able to get any decent sleep on a reclining seat it was definitely a cabin for us each
way. The final expense was two tickets
on the Arnage and Mulsanne excursion. All in all the tour cost us each a
grand total of £196 which in relative terms (compared to the Tourists trips), didn’t seem at
all bad.
The next thing to do was to get together all of
the things I would need for the Le
Mans trip.
Obviously, the main item would be the films, which I purchased from a company in Guernsey at a very significant saving over the normal shop price. I didn’t need to buy any more batteries, as I
still had a couple of spare 2CR5’s for the camera, and the spare batteries for
my remote control which I had bought (but didn’t use) last year. The news on the exchange rate front continued to
improve throughout the year so much so that at one stage the rate broke the
10 francs to the pound barrier for the first time for many years. As the main item of expenditure had already
been met in terms of the cost of the M.R.I.
trip, I didn’t need to take as much foreign currency with me this year as I
would normally need to take on a full Tourists adventure.
You will recall that in advance of the 1997
trip, I had joined the Automobile Club de
L’Ouest (ACO), a package which brought with it not only reduced entrance cost and
a lot of very useful information about the competing cars and drivers, but much more importantly, access to the ACO’s Welcome
Area and even more important than that, access to the roof of “my”
building! I still couldn’t believe that
I'd been able to gain access to such an amazing vantage-point last year,
made all the better by the fact that there were now so few places
left around the parts of the circuit which were accessible to spectators where it was possible to take photographs otherwise than through debris
fencing. Not surprisingly then, as soon as the
reminder came for the renewal of my membership, I sent it off, to ensure that
the benefits it had brought me (and the rest of the team) in 1997 were
available to Peter and I again this year.
It was time to gather together all of the other
things I might need for this year’s trip. Every possible medicament was packed away,
including remedies for headaches, sore throats, Delhi belly and blisters; in other words, all those
ailments I'd suffered from at Le
Mans at various times over the previous 12 years! I also purchased a very small folding umbrella to
store away in my grip as a second line of defence against poor weather, added to the waterproof
poncho which Jayne had bought for me in 1997 (after the dreadful weather we had
at Le Mans in 1995), which was now a permanent feature in my camera bag. All of these things were added to the other Le Mans essentials, in
particular the bum bag and my signature floppy sun hat!
As usual, I'd taken time of work, so I had all day on the Thursday and
most of the day on the Friday to complete my preparations. I had become a little worried with only
a week to go before the trip as although I received confirmation of our booking from M.R.I., no tickets or any other joining instructions had been
received. I anxiously telephoned the
company only to find out that they were a little late in sending out the
information. Sure enough, it arrived
with me at the beginning of the week.
Friday 5th June soon arrived and it turned out to be a very long day, bearing in
mind that we were not due to rendezvous with the M.R.I. Coach until much later in the evening. The coach set off from Plymouth
at 1.00 pm and was due to call at Bristol at
4.00 pm and Swindon at 5.15 pm before getting to Southampton
at 7.45 pm. The rendezvous-point for
Peter and I would again be outside
the railway station in central Southampton,
opposite Toys R Us. At home, having packed my bags many hours before it was soon
time to say goodbye to Jayne and the boys and at about 5.30 pm I set off to
pick Peter up from his rented house in Milford-on-Sea. I was a little early arriving there, and it
took Peter 10 minutes or so to complete his checks and to say cheerio to Hilda,
but we were off on the road to Southampton
just after 6.00 pm.
(I should say at this time that there was never
any difficulty between Jayne and myself regarding my 1998 Le Mans trip. By the time Le Mans came around again, we had only been back for a matter
of days from a lovely break at Center Parcs!
Nevertheless as always, I was very grateful to have the opportunity to
indulge myself yet again and I know that Jayne realises just how grateful I am
for this - and no, she isn't standing over me while I write this, honest!).
This year I wanted to make as accurate a
record as possible of the Le Mans
trip, not only in photographic terms, but also in true anorak style to record the places
we passed through and visited. Of
course, as we were travelling by coach and not making such an expansive tour as
we normally would, this wasn't likely to be too difficult a task. In 1997 I purchased a small notebook, in
which to record places and details as they happened, and although it was quite
difficult to actually remember to note the things down, it did prove to be a
useful aide-memoire, both when writing the 1997 story, and also when writing
up my 1997 photograph albums. This year, instead of using a notebook, I
prepared a diary of sorts on my PC. This
was split down into the four days, Friday to Monday, and into slots
throughout each day (and the night, during the race), in which I could record
everything which happened. I even
colour-coded the days! This was tucked
away safely in the pocket of my jacket.
I only hoped I would remember to use it... (2021 edit - I didn't, of course!).
As the pick-up point for the coach was the
railway station again it meant that I could leave my car in my office car park
for the week-end, where I knew it was as safe as it was likely to be anywhere
in Southampton. Peter and I arrived at
the car park at about 6.40 pm and off-loaded our bags for the short walk
across to the station. Before long, we
were sitting in the station buffet enjoying bacon baguettes and a cup of
coffee, as the realisation that we were once again on our way to Le Mans began to properly
sink in.
At about 7.25 pm, having finished our snack,
we wandered out of the station to await the arrival of our coach. It was possible that the coach would be
a little late (as it had been in both 1992 and 1993), but, you never know your
luck, it could also be early, and there was no way I was prepared to run the
risk of missing it. I paused to take a
couple of snaps of a rather pensive looking Peter, who, despite having waited
for the coach in exactly the same spot twice previously, wasn't convinced that we were in the right place.
Perhaps this feeling was brought on in part at least by the fact that we
seemed to be the only people waiting there for the coach and we had expected quite a number of
additions to the tour at Southampton, as there
had been in both 1992 and 1993. Still, there
were still 15 minutes to go before the coach was due to arrive, so I wasn’t
about to start worrying too much.
It was then that we were approached by a fellow
wearing a yellow t-shirt who asked us if we were waiting for the coach to Le Mans, which we of course confirmed. He introduced
himself to us as Steve (I never picked up his surname), and informed us that he
was not a fellow-traveller, but the M.R.I. tour guide on our coach.
I think both Peter and I probably did a double-take at this time, as
Steve had appeared from nowhere, and there was no coach to be seen! What had happened was that the
coach driver, being unfamiliar with Southampton, had parked the coach on the other side of the station, leaving Steve
to walk across the bridge to see if anyone was waiting in the correct
place for it. So, after a brief chat
with Steve, we quickly picked up our bags and followed Steve back over to the
other side of the station and loaded our gear into the Cross Gates Coaches tour
bus, ready for the final leg of the trip to the Portsmouth ferry terminal.
It was at this very early stage in the
tour that I began to have doubts about Steve's usefulness. I had hoped our guide would be John
Mazur, the experienced M.R.I.
guide who was with us in both 1992 and 1993, but at first it didn’t seem
to matter too much. We had been chatting
with Steve for 5 minutes or so at the station, during which time he told us
that he regularly travelled to Grand Prix, often as a marshal (having recently been lucky enough to marshal at the Australian Grand Prix). Although
he didn’t say so, from what he said I was pretty sure that although well-travelled,
he had not previously worked as a tour guide.
I wondered if it was the case that the LM2 tour had been over-subscribed
(probably even before I made the booking), so M.R.I. had put on a second coach. I presumed that John Mazur was likely to
be the guide on the first coach, and someone had been needed to perform the
same role on the second one - enter Steve...
The doubtful thoughts first began to surface as
we drove from Southampton to Portsmouth. Not only did Steve not have a clue where we
were going, but Adrian, the coach driver, didn’t seem to know either, and Peter
and I ended up having to give the pair of them instructions how to get out of
Southampton and make for the motorway!
We did get there eventually, and it wasn't a problem, as we were in good
time anyway. Steve again displayed his ineptness when trying
to get the video player on the coach to work on the journey to Portsmouth.
Again, it was pretty obvious that he didn’t have a clue what he was
doing and had never used the machine before.
Eventually, we all gave up the ghost trying to get the video to play
properly at any time during the journey.
It wasn’t anything to make a fuss about I know, but it was an
illustration that the man had not been properly briefed before setting off.
The journey to Portsmouth was otherwise uneventful and with
little traffic about we got there in good time at about 8.30 pm. We had quite a long wait in store as according to the joining instructions, the ferry wasn't due to depart Portsmouth until 10.30
pm. Most of the
travellers got off the coach and wandered around the
terminal. Peter and I headed off to the
terminal shop, where Peter purchased a couple of bottles of Vittel. We were travelling
this year to Le Havre and not Caen as in 1992 and 1993. We had parked out of the main car queues for the
ferry, I suspect because neither Adrian the driver nor Steve our tour “guide”
knew where we were supposed to be. It
wasn’t long before the electronic signs starting flashing up the departure time
for our ferry, The Pride of Portsmouth
(the same ferry as the team travelled on last year). I was slightly puzzled as the departure time
was shown as 10.15 pm and not 10.30 pm as advertised. But it was still only about 9.30 and we
had plenty of time in hand. I amused
myself by taking one or two shots of Peter on the coach, while he was chatting
to Adrian and Steve.
10.00 pm came and went and there we were,
still sitting in the same place in the corner of the terminal car park,
seemingly miles away from where (I thought) we should be to be ready to go on
board. Steve seemed entirely nonchalant
about this, despite the fact that we had all been sitting on the coach for
something like half an hour, waiting to move.
It appeared that the hold-up was caused by having to wait for some
others to join the coach as there was no stop at the Portsmouth railway station this year. We were also apparently waiting for the other
LM2 tour coach (with John Mazur) to arrive. John and Steve finally met up, by which time
10.15 pm was rapidly approaching, and if someone didn’t extract their proverbial digit, we
were going to miss the ferry altogether. We then had a problem in that we couldn’t accommodate all of those who
wanted to get on our coach - there was still one person without a seat. A roll-call was necessary -
yes, everyone who was supposed to be there was there, and there should have
been a spare seat somewhere on the coach for our friend. We were, by now, in the queue for the ferry,
although that is in itself a misdescription, as there were now no other vehicles waiting apart from the
two M.R.I. coaches... Steve seemed quite unable to resolve the
seating problem and was half way through a second head-count, when John
appeared to take control of the situation.
Incredibly, some complete dork near the rear of the coach had decided it
would be nice if he had the whole of a double seat to himself, and neither he or
anyone near to him had the sense to tell Steve there was a spare
seat!
This stupid problem thus resolved, better late
than never we proceeded towards the ferry.
We were then informed that we would have to board as foot passengers,
leaving the ferry to go on empty. I suspected that by now there was no alternative as the ferry was ready to
leave and they did not want another coach joining at that stage, full of people
who would then have to make their way off the coach when it had been parked. We therefore left the coach and headed for
the embarkation stairs, but before we could get on board, Steve had to issue
the cabin passes. Finally something went without a hitch, and Peter
and I found ourselves sharing with two chaps by the name of John and Fergus
(and it doesn’t take much guessing to work out where Fergus hailed from). They had travelled down in the coach from Bristol, Fergus having flown down from Scotland to
meet the coach there. It was a Le Mans debut for both of
them.
At last, we got on board the ferry, the crew at
the boarding doors making it very clear that we were the last on, and lucky to
be so! They obviously hadn’t expected
anyone else. Having got our initial
bearings, the four of us decided to find our cabin first. In this respect, we were lucky as it was
situated only just off one of the main corridors, very handy. We were only issued with one electronic key
pass for the cabin door, but others were always available, and John and Fergus
disappeared to get one.
Having had nothing to eat since our bacon butties
at the station in Southampton, Peter and I decided that food was now the order
of the day, it was 10.45 pm, and the delayed ferry (probably delayed because of us), was off and running towards Le
Havre. We were
due in at 7.00 am (French time - one hour forward), on Saturday morning. Peter and I made our way to the restaurant,
where we were soon tucking into steak and kidney pudding and chips. After our meal (suitably documented for the
photo album, like everything else), it was time for the first beer of the Le Mans week-end, and we
made our way to the bar, where we soon disposed of a couple of bottles of
Grolsch. Before going for a drink we had
visited the duty-free shop, where Peter bought some perfume for Hilda. After our beer, there being nothing much else
to do and very aware of the fact that we weren’t likely to be getting much
sleep during the race this year (I never do, of course), we headed off to the
cabin for some shut-eye, at I suppose, about a quarter past midnight. It was at this point that Peter realised he
didn't have his duty-free bag with Hilda's perfume with him, so we raced back to the bar and checked around
the table we had used, but there was no sign of the bag. Thankfully on checking at the bar, some
honest soul had handed it in (unlike the occasion a few years ago on the return
journey, when Ian lost a bagful of expensive perfume for Carole, in much the
same way). Relieved, we returned to our
cabin where we were joined by John and Fergus very soon shortly afterwards, and
sleep was the order of the day all round.
I won’t bore you by telling you about the
thoroughly uneventful ferry crossing however, we were
lucky to be blessed with a very calm crossing. I had no trouble at all sleeping and was
awakened by the ferry’s alarm at 6.00 am, which indicated that we would be
docking at Le Havre
in one hour’s time, bang on schedule. I
didn’t take any persuading at all to have a quick wash and brush up and get
dressed, ready to go up and have a cup of coffee. Peter and I were into the bar again by 6.30
am, and were soon tucking into coffee and croissants.
