A week later this year, and an extra stage to boot. This edition of the Tour of Britain started in London and finished in Liverpool, the 2008 European City of Culture. It included some new start and finish towns, and a couple of really picturesque locations for stage finishes. I prefer to get away from the major cities which the race traditionally visits. It also turned out to be a race which gave me more technical problems than usual.

The race was due to start on Sunday, so the day before I drove down to Milton Keynes which was where the headquarters hotel was situated. There was really nothing for me to do there apart from collecting my accreditation and clothing, but it was a good opportunity to meet up again and have a coffee with Seamus and Kannan. Seamus would again provide his excellent results service for the Tour, and Kannan, over once more from Malaysia, would help us both as usual. It was also great to meet up with Chief Judge Trevor Hughes and his team.

I didn't intend to spend too long in Milton Keynes as I was booked into a London hotel for the night. The hotel had an underground car park with a height clearance of 2 metres, and as the van's height is 1.94 metres I thought it might have been a bit tricky! Any problems and I would have to make alternative arrangements.

 

Still, I got in OK apart from a slight mix-up with the booking, and the view from the Tower Hotel at night was quite spectacular (left).

 

During the evening I got talking to a couple of ex merchant navy veterans who were there for the annual Merchant Navy day on Sunday. One of them was from the USA and was the vice president of the American Merchant Navy Association. He had first come to Britain in 1942 and crossed the Atlantic without mishap before being torpedoed off Liverpool. I said that I would finish up there at the end of the race but hopefully in one piece.

"The Battle of Britain is about to begin"
Winston Churchill, June 1940

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An appropriate location for Stage 1. Right next to the Battle of Britain Memorial on the Thames embankment (right).

 

It takes longer to setup for the first stage because all the cabling has to be run in afresh. Once done, most of it stays there for the week. Anyway, all went well for the morning's Grand Prix of London which was a useful test for the equipment. During the break between that event and the Tour stage start, my extra monitor packed in! In the past I have borrowed one from BC but this time I took a spare from home, but it did not last very long. Seamus scounged a spare flat screen job from the race organisation which worked well and it got me out of that particular hole.

 

The Stage 2 finish was at Newbury, and this was where things got a little hairy for me. Although both cameras booted up as usual, one of them was producing a very over-exposed image and would not respond to the laptop. I managed to speak to Bob on the phone in case he could suggest anything, but I still had an unreadable picture.

 

Then I remembered that Tom and I had come across a similar fault a few years back, so I tried the same fix we did then. This time I could get a better picture although still without laptop control. Definitely a problem with the camera? The pictures at the race finish were better from this camera than the other!

Some may remember BBC television presenter Maggie Philbin (left). She now works for BBC Radio Berkshire, and spent the best part of the day transmitting her radio show from the race finish.

 

Here she is interviewing Seamus in our little 'home'. She spent quite a while chatting to us and showed a great interest in what we did for the race. A nice lady.

 

Now then, what to do about the dodgy camera. From Newbury we would be heading for Burnham on Sea in Somerset. If anything went drastically wrong there I would be in trouble. In view of the good results I got I decided to chance it and stick with the kit as it was. I had kept Brian Furness in the picture and he contacted HS Sports on my behalf. Thanks for your help Brian. The plan was for me to liase with them later in the week to resolve the situation.

 

Time for a couple more pics (above). That evening we stayed just outside Burnham on Sea, and instead of the usual hotel, our accommodation consisted of holiday lodges. I thought it was great and made a nice change. The picture on the left shows the BC limo alongside the Kannanmobile outside our rooms. On the right is my usual setup in the control room showing the flat screen monitor which I was at that time using.

 

The Burnham finish area (right). It was like a river when we arrived at 6am but everything started to dry later. To keep dry while everyone else was getting wet I took the cameras into our vehicle to see if my camera fault was still there - it was!

 

Not only that, I discovered a problem with the other camera. Not enough to cause panic (well, no more than before) but enough to make me just a little concerned.

 

As soon as I could I managed to get in touch with John Pearson and advised him of the situation. We arranged to meet that evening at a motorway services in the midlands on my drive to Stoke, where he would let me use his camera for the time being. Trouble is he needed it back for weekend. Thanks for turning out John, I really appreciated it. I commented to him that I was glad this had happened to me and not him. He replied "So am I"!

 

Two pictures of the finish area at Stoke on Trent (above). It was a good location with an uphill finish.

 

Now then, my cunning plan was to leave Stoke after the stage and drive the short distance to Congleton for HS Sports to take a look at my camera. If they couldn't fix it quickly they would lend me a spare for the duration of the race.

 

As the van was completely fenced into the area reserved for technical vehicles I thought I would have trouble getting out in time to get to Congleton before HSS closed. As in previous years security on the race was handled by the army, so I outlined my predicament to the RSM in charge. Within seconds he had got his men to open up a pathway for me and I was on the road.

 

SOD'S LAW. For the past three days my camera had tested faulty each morning. When I took it out of the box at HSS it worked fine! They still stripped the lens control mechanism down to see if they could spot anything, but there was nothing apparently wrong. Could it have been me? I don't think so, but it did make me doubt myself. Perhaps I was silly in turning down their offer of another camera anyway because I was then heading to north Yorkshire and away from help once again.

 

The most attractive location for a race finish so far shown in the six thumbnails above. This was the spectacular setting at Dalby Forest. The small images don't do it justice, but I wanted to include as many as possible here. On the previous evening we stayed in log cabins about 10 miles away which I thought were great, but nobody realised that they were self catering and there were no towels or soap and very little in the way of bedding!

 

Another highlight from the race was at Gateshead. In addition to Kannan there were other Malaysian guests on the race. Two of them were G-Man and G-Boy! Where the names come from, I know not, but they did a great job erecting the towers and gantry each day.

 

The Gateshead finish coincided with G-Man's birthday, so it had been arranged for him to open and close the Gateshead Millenium Bridge.

 

Here's part of our group in the control room with G-Man in the centre looking smart in a Malaysian shirt. G-Boy is just on the right of the picture.

 

The Scottish stage finish this year was at Drumlanrig Castle, home of the Duke of Buccleuch. Set in 120,000 acres and dating back to 1691, this was another spectacular venue. Or it would have been if the weather had been better. The castle is shown above left.

 

A regular visitor each day was Toby, the Tour of Britain mascot.

 

A great favourite of the kids, here he is at Drumlanrig (right).

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I have already mentioned the close ties with Malaysia, built up over the years at the Tour de Langkawi. Two more visitors who helped the whole thing run smoothly on a day to day basis were Adele and Melody, otherwise known as Del and Mel (or Mel and Del!)

 

Managing the administration side of things at the finish they were a pleasure to work with.

 

 

So, for this year's team photo, here we all are putting the Tour's presentation podium to important use.

 

 

Left to right:-

 

Seamus, Del, Mel, John, Kannan