2006 Annual Rally

Why the Dutch go South

 The natural inkling of the vast majority of the Hollanders is to head south in massive cohorts as soon as the holiday season starts. The farther the better and a holiday not spent on the Costa Brava or the Costa del Sol is a waste. You Brits should consider yourself lucky for not having half our population invade your country every time the sun gets out. You did well by keeping the Isles separate from the continent and consequently referring to “home” and “overseas”, giving the impression that the crossing to Britain is a hazardous adventure. In fact it is; I will get to that a bit later. The opening of the Channel Tunnel posed a major threat to your peace but you made sure to keep the fare high enough to scare people off and for those who get across in spite of that, you introduced the close to impenetrable barrier of the M25. The few who manage to get past London are no longer a real threat. By the time they have reached Cambridge or thereabouts safely, they will have got used to keeping to the left and most of them will have lain off their nasty continental driving habits. The rest of the invaders will have been neatly taken care of by AAA who will ferry them back home with their miserable cars.

Those of us who have a more nautical background will look for other ways of exploring the unknown. Looking West on the map reveals no less than two additional ways of getting to Britain by way of sea. The 11 or 16 hour journey, depending on the crossing, allows one to adapt slowly and to anticipate things like left hand driving, endless roundabouts, beer without foam and the like. Reading “Astrérix chez les Bretons” a week or two before departure sets the right mind for the adventure: Goscinny’s humoristic characterizations of typically British habits like the slightly complex use of language (it is, isn’t it…), the notoriously good manners, the tweed clothing and the national custom to drink “black water” into which a cloud of milk is poured, are very amusing. Sailing off to Britain with a more or less obsolete French car makes you wonder what the Gallic adventurers of some 2000 years ago must have been expecting, apart from Romains who needed to be beaten of course.

For me the IJmuiden–Newcastle crossing was the most convenient and -I must admit- looked more adventurous than Rotterdam–Hull which everybody seems to take. Sailing from IJmuiden on a sunny mid-September late afternoon is a feast and the prospect of wining and dining, going to sleep and having a nice breakfast before leaving ship at 9 o’clock in the morning local time is most relaxing. The night of the crossing was bright and moonlit and the number of lights encountered under way that appear to be huge oil or gas rigs, entire fishing fleets, other merchant vessels and the like, is mind boggling. The North Sea is as crowded as a market square in mid-town and crossing it in safety without hitting anything seems to be sheer luck. Looking out into the darkness of the sea I wondered where the oil rig was where they forgot to turn the lights on. Icebergs seemed a minor threat compared to these monsters... 

 

Zigzagging southward through North Yorkshire got me to places like Whitby, Pickering, Helmsley, Thirsk and Ripon where I spent the night in a hotel overlooking the market square, by the promising name of “Unicorn”. These places make you aware of the friendliness of the English people and the beauty countryside.

 

 

 

Fountains Abbey and its surrounding gardens, just outside Ripon, leave you with the impression that one half of the British people are walking around in gardens and the other half are making sure they are well kept.

As Friday, the gathering date of the TOC Annual Rally, came closer I had the opportunity to spend the best part of a day with Roger Williams at his home in Beverley. This man is a living technical encyclopedia of the Traction Avant. It is unfortunate that Roger was too young at the time to have much influence on the technical design of the Traction. Had he been around a bit earlier, the car would have looked different for sure, and we would still be using original gearboxes and drive shafts as if they were new…

Entries for TOC Rally included a number of fellow countrymen, a Belgian car and four Tractions from France. Mick Popka had done a fantastic job in keeping in touch with virtually every individual, making sure all were equipped with maps and directions.

Saturday saw us taking off from Tesco’s parking southeast of York, for a nice drive through the North Yorkshire countryside. Routes were smartly designed, allowing people to make shortcuts and still getting us all together at strategic places.

The pub in the picturesque village Hutton le Hole allowed for nice drinks, good food and nostalgic pictures. Eden Camp, next on our itinerary is a good example of displaying the horrors of wartime day to day life in an intense manner. Beautifully done! The evening party for which the dress code was “WW2-style” was exceptionally well organized, with bus transportation for all participants, allowing for the undisturbed consumption of a couple “de verres” and making sure everybody was delivered home safely.

Sunday started with a drive into York, where the cars were parked around the circle in front of the Castle. A visit to the National Railway Museum brought us face to face with a lot of technology contemporary to the Traction. Brits are railroad adepts and the magnificent way in which engines and trains, famous in national history, are displayed and cherished, makes you jealous. 

 

Via a lunch stop at another roadside pub the itinerary brought us back to the Yorkshire Air Museum, the same place where the dinner had taken place the day before, only few people had noticed due to the darkness. That Sunday was Battle of Britain Day and the spectacular fly-by of a WW2 Spitfire fighter plane made me understand why you people are known for British Plumbing: ally your ingenuity and engineering power went into designing and building these magnificent machines. I had seen a RR Merlin engine on display in a museum a few times, but actually hearing and feeling the 27 liter supercharged V12 engine with the airplane wrapped tightly around it roar by was stunning. What a magnificent conclusion of a very pleasant and superbly organized TOC Annual Rally!

 

Apart from visiting the nicest places in the course of the weekend, we had the opportunity to exchange views between clubs on how to best promote the Traction. We all seem to be suffering from more or less the same problem and that is age; not so much of the cars, they seem imperishable, but of their owners. Looking at a fleet of some 2,000 cars in the Netherlands of which about two thirds are owned by members of TAN, the concern is what the ownership will look like some ten years from now. New initiatives will be necessary to retain or regain the interest for the Traction among younger people. A number of good ideas were discussed, including an interesting proposal to celebrate 75 years of Traction Avant in the year 2009.

 

A word of gratitude and congratulations to Mick Popka for his relentless effort to make this a memorable occasion for all those who participated, is well deserved.

  

1 October 2006

 

Karel Beukema toe Water

Vice-President of Traction Avant Nederland