After waiting a year to finally head off to British Vespa Days in Rutland the day finally arrived. My plan; head up the M27, then the M3 and A34 from Portsmouth to meet my riding buddy (who also happens to be my son), who was heading up from Southampton, at the Sutton Scotney Services on the A34…
After a missed rendezvous, a lost flight jacket (don’t ask) and a general comedy of errors we finally met two services up at Chieveley. The rest of the journey was relatively trouble-free, and with only one or two, errr, ‘navigational errors’ we arrived safe and sound, and more importantly, dry, because as this is a rally weekend in 2021 the weather forecast is of course for rain, and it’s been grey and threatening all the way up.

We manage to get our tents up in the dry, with the next stop being food, we test out the burger van, and it comes up trumps. Great food (including a ‘Vespa dirty burger’, which lived up to its name, though no Vespas were harmed in the making of the burger). With good prices we were to frequent this establishment a lot over the weekend.

Next stop. The bar. It actually takes a while to get there as we bumped into lots of people I hadn’t seen in a very long time, but that’s the whole point, meeting old friends as well as making new ones. Beers in hand we wandered around catching up with people… theme of the conversations, apart from it’s good to see you, ‘did you break down?’ No. I. Didn’t!

As the evening wore on we finally gave in and headed to our tents, leaving everyone else to enjoy the disco.

Saturday arrives and with it brings rain, but no surprise there. The morning was spent with possibly the loveliest couple in the world, Dixie and Jules King, drinking coffee and listening to Peter Guppy’s stories about the Farnborough VC in the 60s, honestly Peter I didn’t realise you were such a little troublemaker!

My Pensive moods – Dixie King

We ran a feature on Dixie and his on-going battle with brain cancer recently. You can catch up with that here and buy a copy of his charity poetry book.

I decided not to do the rideout, which seemed to be the right decision as within minutes it started to rain again. Although as it turns out it was just on the Rutland Showground and everyone on the rideout stayed dry! A very late breakfast, as my son had only just rolled out of his tent and then round to the fun and games. Tyre throwing is just one of the games, though as it’s raining I watch it from the bar.

I tried my luck at the fairground stalls set up by the VCB though and amazingly I won… actually everyone won something so my bean bag throwing skills aren’t really as good as I think. There’s no goldfish in the prizes, which is probably a good thing because I don’t think anyone would have been able to get them home on their scooters!

Kerr’s Corner

Time for another beer, then listen to the legend that is Norrie Kerr giving a talk about his time in the Glasgow Vespa Club, surrounded by memorabilia, he gives a witty, amusing and interesting insight to Scottish scootering and racing in the 60s and 70s.

More chatting, catching up and general Vespa stuff, as well as a hog roast and before I know it it’s the evening and the disco is in full swing, once again I head off to my tent, though not before a lovely chat with Toni Machin about life, the universe and everything Vespa.

Sunday morning and it was dry, so we headed off home, no major dramas, though I did stop to help a stranded Lambretta rider on the A14. Well, no good deed goes unpunished as they say and as we came off the A14 my scoot spluttered to a halt. A quick change of CDI and we’re off again (I must express my thanks to The Seahorses VC for stopping and taking the Mick, as well as photographing the event for posterity).

Oh and if anyone should see a black flight jacket stuck in a bush on the northbound A34, somewhere before Sutton Scotney and Chieveley services could you let me know, it’s mine!

Words and photos: Booga

Flick through the Rallery below for more images…

Booga’s British Vespa Days Rallery