In the early 1970s my wife, Susan and I bought a little touring caravan, which gave us considerable pleasure, and allowed us to become familiar with many parts of the country which we otherwise may never have seen. The children, Lee, John and Sarah all became experienced caravanners in their respective childhoods, and although we all agree that we would not want to do it now, at the time it was great fun and a source of useful experience.
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We spent many happy weekends in the New Forest, and this area is the scene of a little bit of fun I had at the expense of my poor wife. I have said that it was a small caravan, so it lacked an internal toilet compartment. This facility was provided by a toilet tent, which was rather cramped, and, to be honest, pretty basic. Anyone with experience of the New Forest will be familiar with the ponies which roam free and keep the grass close-cropped with their incessant grazing.
One afternoon, Susan was installed in the toilet tent when I hit on an idea! Going quietly to a point about ten feet distant from her “refuge” I began cropping the grass with my fingers, and, I have to say, making a pretty passable impression of the ripping sound made by a grazing pony. Slowly and steadily I inched closer and closer to the tent, doing my best to make the sound convincingly louder as I approached. Being now right up to the tent, I gave it a fairly hefty nudge with my shoulder, so that the flimsy structure shook! A somewhat panic-stricken voice from inside said “Shoo, go away you silly bloody animal!” Poor Susan called me some fairly choice names when she heard me laughing, but true to form, joined in the joke and said it was a very convincing performance.
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We owned a variety of cars over our caravanning years, all of them Volkswagens, but several different models. Probably the most useful as a tug was a 1973 Type 4, 412 Variant. The word Variant, in VW parlance, indicates an “estate” style of bodywork, and the car followed the usual pattern of this manufacturer, in having its air-cooled, flat-four engine mounted under the floor, at the rear. This left the under-bonnet free for use as a capacious boot, in addition to the load carrying area behind the rear seat. We were on a caravan site in Devon, and I was in the process of loading up the car for our journey. A young lad of about seven had been watching this procedure for some time, until he could contain his curiosity no longer. He approached tentatively, and asked, “Mister, has your car got an engine?”