during the gymnastics program, became the comedy quote of the holiday from then on) while I tried to find the fault with the engine.
Shortly after this girl’s boyfriend arrived and she hastily explained to us that she was going out for the day and wouldn’t be back, and off she went. I was now left with mother as my helper. It wasn’t a match made in heaven.
After some examination, I realised that the engine was only running on two cylinders, instead of four, and that was the problem. The other two cylinders were working, to some extent, but only firing very intermittently, and the engine was as rough as a dog. But what was the cause of the engine only firing on two cylinders? Was it sparking on all four? Yes. Was fuel getting through? Yes. Was there compression? Yes.
The only thing I could think of was that maybe the inlet manifold gasket on the carburettor had gone and was leaking air, causing a weak mixture. I was grasping at straws, but couldn’t think what else it could be. I therefore removed the carburettor and inlet manifold (not easy) and enlisted the help of mother to drive me to the nearest British Leyland dealer to buy a new gasket.
When we got back I fitted the new gasket while mother went to make lunch for her surprise guests – my, she was having a good day! I continued working on the car and by mid-afternoon the new gasket was fitted and I was ready to try starting the engine again. I started it, and it was exactly the same as before, no change. Once again, my frustration was only outdone by the look on the face of mother.
I racked my brains, and slowly I began to work through the problem. I suddenly realised that whilst the car was only running on two cylinders, no matter what, it actually ran better when I removed both the spark plugs on the cylinders that weren’t running properly, the engine smoothed out and ran cleanly. Replacing the spark plugs and the ignition leads going to them immediately led to the engine running as rough as a dog again.
Sabotage!
I suddenly had a brainwave. I swapped the HT leads (the wires going to the spark plugs) over between the two cylinders that were running badly, and immediately the engine roared into life and ran like a dream!!! I realised that the reason the engine had been running so badly was because someone had sabotaged our car by swapping the HT leads over between two of the cylinders!
It all began to slowly fall into place. I realised that during the party I’d gone to the car with Kit and showed him the engine bay for some unearthly reason, whilst the disgruntled friends of girl looked on. From this they must have seen that mine was a very early Mini and so the bonnet was opened by a catch from the outside - no need to get into the car to open the bonnet, the whole operation was done from outside. At this point, I can only assume that one of them had therefore thought that it would be a merry jape to re-open the bonnet on my Mini after we'd gone back inside, and swap the HT leads over. I remembered that I’d found the bonnet not quite fully closed when I’d gone to load the car the morning after the party, but hadn’t really thought anything of it at the time.
I was furious! The fact that someone, a fellow Mini owner and supposed mutual friend, had lowered themselves to deliberately sabotaging my car was beyond me. That’s why it had taken me so long to figure out the problem – the fact that someone would stoop low enough to actually do something like that for no reason at all simply never entered my head - we’d not had an argument with anybody or anything, or been abusive - someone just felt like being mean. I was annoyed with myself for not realising the problem sooner, and pictured the other boys laughing when they got to hear how I’d taken half the engine apart trying to fix it.
Anyway, mother was quite delighted that the car was finally running, but not ecstatic, as by this time it was too late for us to set off and we had to spend another night at their house (although girl never showed up again). I did explain to mother what had happened, and the level of betrayal – I was always brought up to believe in the sanctity of guests, no matter what, and to ignore this unwritten rule was a betrayal – think Macbeth and The Glencoe Massacre. However, I got the impression that she was more annoyed at us, for being there in the first place, than she was at the perpetrators of this heinous crime. She bought us Pizzas, turned the TV on, and shut the living room door.
The next morning, not for the first time, we loaded the gear back into the Mini and set off, actually leaving this time! Mother and girl waved us off, but their forced smiles were very thin and I saw their body language in the mirror, clearly showing their sense of relief as the boys left town. Anyway, we were on the road again, at last!
Cornish camp!
From there we travelled all the way down to the Lizard Point in Cornwall and camped on a site that Geoff and I knew from the previous year when we had stopped there on our motorbikes - my BSA Starfire 250 (which broke down) and his Suzuki GT250.
The Boys, with Spot, the dog
During our time on the Lizard, we amused ourselves by going to the beach during the day (no sign of Bikini Babes) and then driving round the country lanes in the evening with a couple of the gang sitting on the roof rack. Health and safety? Bah!
Camping on the Lizard Point.
One day when I went off to the shops to buy some food, I picked up a girl who was hitching, but had to drop her off a couple of miles from her destination as I was picking the others up from a pub. However, when they heard the story, they insisted that I take her the rest of the way and so, somehow, the four of them squeezed into the back seat (a world record?) and we went back and picked the girl up again (I think that she was a little wary of us to begin with – who wouldn’t be when offered a lift by 5 youths in a Mini!) and took her to the lovely little pub on the quay of the little fishing village where she worked as a bar maid.
I’ve no idea where the village was or what the pub was called, but we spent the rest of the afternoon there, getting slowly drunk, before driving back to the campsite (I wasn’t too fussed about drink driving at that time!) Sadly, the lifts we had so generously given her were not repaid with offers of beach parties or any other general debauchery.
Torquay welcome!
Going on from there we went down to Torquay and camped outside the town, and although we spent most of our days on the beach, there was still no sign of any Bikini Babes - Damnation!
Camping in Torquay
The most noteworthy thing about our stay there was that one evening we hit the bars in downtown Torquay, and we chanced upon a really great bar with loud music, loads of young people and a great atmosphere. Brilliant! (Just the sort of place that I would now avoid like the plague, but as teenagers, it was heaven!) By that time it was getting a bit late but we all bought pints, somehow squeezed onto a table and began to soak up the great music and atmosphere.
However, no sooner had we all sat down, but the music suddenly stopped, massive spotlights in the ceiling were suddenly switched on, flooding the place with a blinding white light, and a door at the back of the pub suddenly opened through which several massive bouncers entered in an aggressive manner – carrying baseball bats! They all started to shout ‘Time’ and ‘everybody out’
