longers said:
We/I used to love seeing you all turn up in Morecambe.
Why did they put a stop to it?
Absolutely no idea(but read the bottom of post for clues
) - It was always a well attended rally because of it's "Central Britain" location. We loved it because most of the locals embraced the Scooterists and the out of season money it brought to the communities.
I always thought it must've been intimidating when 7000 to 15000 guest's turned up for a long weekend in your town. Most of us were in our teens/early 20's and by and large were well behaved and well organised. Although there was an element who would've caused trouble, these were warned/weeded out by the Scooterists themselves - because we didn't want to lose these Rally's.
We had two or three associations(NSRA/VFM) involved with us(Scootering ones) who would organise food at the campsites/the campsites themselves and band's and DJ's for the night clubs in the evenings. I always felt sorry for the local kids(our age) because they would have nowhere to go that weekend - although some did join us at the local pubs. There would have been no chance of them getting into the night clubs because you had to be affiliated to some organisation - to keep trouble makers out.
I think eventually the Rally's nationwide became too big for the authorities to control(after 30,000 turned up at Isle of White
). Our organisations had to negotiate with the Police/local authorities and give financial guaranties. The spoilsports even had the law changed to stop us riding out of the town's en masse(small groups only) - as was tradition on a Sunday morning and obviously at the end of the Rally(when we were going home
).
I remember in about 1988ish going into Great Yarmouth the Police setting up road blocks to check all our scoot's details/licences/roadworthiness/legality/tax - tail backs of Scooters as far as the eye could see. To be fair to the Police they were only doing as they were told - and let us know they were as pi$$ed off as us at all the hastle the checks were causing.
I returned to Falkirk in Scotland with 7 "Horti's" - 7 day slips and handed each one over individually for checking at my local Police Station. Yes I wasted their time. The way I saw it the Police wasted at least 8 hours of my time going in and out of Norwich/Great Yarmouth - 4 hours to get in, 4 hour to get out. Then 5 random stops whilst there(illegal without reason - at the time). Remember after the checks I still had to drive for 8/10 hours to Scotland(about 500miles) - I missed my work the next day.
I think the above may have been a contributing factor to the demise of the Scooter Rallies in the late 80's. We where treated like a bunch of undisirables by the law and authorities at the time and bullied because we were young. They probably wouldn't be allowed to do any of the things they did then - now, because of Human Rights etc.
I would imagine the rules brought in then could probably effect a few of our members on here who Motorcycle / TT in groups now?
Square headlight mark one?
