In the 60's in Nottingham there were three scooter clubs in Nottingham: The Bowmen (Lambretta Club), The Lightweights (mixed scooter models) and the Nottingham Vespa Club (although I had a Vespa, I can never remember going to Vespa club meetings). There were a few local gymkhanas and suchlike and I can vaguely remember doing some gymkhanas on the Honda, which used to take place in Bunny in those days.
However, the first serious event I took part in was the Esso Scoot to Scotland. At that stage I had already met my future wife, Christine and when I first told her about the event, she didn't believe me and thought I was off my trolley. The plan was to finish work on Friday and we would go down country towards London (Kettering/Northampton rings a bell) for our starting point.
There were different starting points for the event and everybody had to end up doing the same mileage. There were people starting from London so the idea of us going down country was to put in the miles at the different checkpoints.
After being given our route, we left our departure checkpoint late Friday night (with the scooters leaving at one minute intervals) and rode back up country through the borders, checking in at various points at a specific time.
On Saturday morning there would be different events to complete, like a hill climb where you had to do things like drive away without rolling back and crushing an egg with the back wheel. We ended up in Edinburgh on Saturday evening; then on Sunday we did a run to Loch Lomond and other places.
Then Monday it would be the drive back home for work on Tuesday. I did that event on my Vespa. I think John did two events, but I only did that one. Scoot to Scotland was all roadwork, but we did other events like the Cambrian, where you effectively went off-road down country tracks.