Stormin'
Homer Walker reports on...
'Is that Homer?' said the voice on the end of the phone.
'Yes it is' says I.
'Ho good. It's Jim Coxon from Stormin. I just wondered what you and Bruiser
where doing about coming up to Stormin this year?'
'Why? What do you want us to do?' I asked.
'Well, as me and Veece came and helped you out at the Farmyard, how about
you coming up here in the build up week and giving us a hand. I thought you
could run the MAG stand during the event and while you're doing that can you
give out the membership vouchers as well.'
'Just a minute Jim, you and Veece turned up at 11am on the Saturday of the
Farmyard because it was raining on the Friday and the only thing the both of
you did, was make sure the bar didn't fall on anyone for 16 hours.'
'And a job well done we thought!' (Good point) 'So is that a yes then?' said
Jim.
We were required for the Tuesday before Stormin because we had to get the event wristbands up to Liz Coxon to sort out for the gate. When you have 8000 wristbands to sort it takes a while! Bruiser came to my house with the van then he, myself & my 7-year-old son Bart loaded the entire MAG UK stand and all its paraphernalia for the journey North. With the caravan hitched we set off looking like we should have a motorway maintenance sticker in the back window or we should be tarmacing driveways for £100!
On the way up we decided to teach Bart some of the basic lingo he would need
to get by, once we passed Richmond North Yorkshire.
'Right Bart, you only need to use vowels when you talk, try to say 'EEEEEE,
IIIIIII, OOOOOO, UUUUUUU and that's a sentence in itself' we told him.
'Try to say, I divnt naaar! That means I don't know.'
He just gave us a blank look, shook his head and carried on reading his Dr
Who book.
We arrived on site and set up base camp and after a quick cup of tea we had a walk around the almost empty site. The biggest change from last year was obvious (besides it was not pissing it down with rain that is). The main marquee was huge! 30 meters wide by 80 meters long. You need more than your shoes and socks off to work out how big that is in square meterage!
So off we went looking for the Stormin hardcore crew. These are the people who give up a week's holiday to build up the event, between them working around 400 hours between Tuesday and Thursday evening. If they are committee members as well they give up 9 sundays planning it and numerous evenings to put the event together before they even get on the site. We start chatting about what they have planned for the event and it's obvious that they have listened to what the customers fed back to them last year and are providing more toilets, hand washing facilities, and a constant litter picking campaign to keep the site clean and tidy amongst other things.
When talking to Jim I thought he is not his usual gibbering bumbling self,
but a calm laid back almost serene man.
'What's going on with Jim?' I asked his wife Liz.
'Ha, I just got a party pack of Smarties, and gave him just all the yellow
ones, telling him they are Prozac and its worked, the only problem is that
chocolate makes him constipated, but we can worry about that later' she said
laughing.
The organisation and the timing of the deliveries are crucially important during build up week and as expected, it went without a hitch, not that Jim with his glazed look would have cared anyway. The weather stayed hot and sunny and while we where putting the bars in the marquees we where sweating like Geordies in a maths test, it was that warm.
Friday morning came and I was awoken by what sounded like a pack of wild dogs fighting over a carcass of a dead water buffalo on the Serengeti. My fears where soon intensified with a peek out of the window to see Lindy Higgins, and some of her mates having what they describe as a quiet chat just outside my door, I would rather take on the wild dogs, ye gods, there's no wonder her husband Andy has lost his marbles.
The sun just kept on shining, it was going to be a great Stormin and everyone could feel it. The first bikes started to arrive and queue for the 10am gate opening. To greet them this year was the new gate that the Stormin' committee had commissioned to be made. A fine example of putting that bit of extra effort in to make an event special and help keep Stormin up in the league of top UK bike events.
As Friday rumbled on so did the constant thunder coming from the bikes arriving at the gate hour after hour. We put the MAG stall together while Debbie and the rest of the products team got the vast piles of Stormin merchandise out ready for sale.
It was at this time that I stumbled across the Stormin' show program and taking a minute to have a look and see what's on it's easy to see what good value for money this event is. For £22.00 you can camp for two nights, see 12 bands up to the calibre of UFO, look at a superb collection of custom bikes, trundle around over 50 traders, go on fair rides, chew fat with old and new mates over a beer or 10 and see a special free preview of the movie Freebird and all this with the piece of mind that your money is going to MAG to fund rider rights campaigns. All for just £22! Not failing to mention as well that as a MAG member you get £3 back in beer vouchers. And it's sunny too! ACE.
At ten to four I peak out of the MAG/products marquee that is situated between the two-music marquees (did I mention that Stormin has two marquees for entertainment and come to think of it, also a bar with no music where you can chat away to your heart's content) and see a queue for the products that stretches a good 150 meters in a snake like fashion from the closed door of the products tent. And then we are off, for the next 5 hours that fly by with us giving out membership vouchers and taking a fair amount of new memberships as well.
We are given a royal visit by ex Chief Superintendent, his Royal Highness, the MAG campaigns Guru David Short, who has come to Stormin to meet, greet, shake hands and kiss babies, but like a good un he jumps in and mans the stall with us for the evening.
The bands on Friday were rocking the night away, with the Quireboys headlining in the main marquee playing good and proper Rock'n'Roll. Everyone was having a high old time in whichever venue they decided to use and unusually for Stormin', because it was so warm the whole of the night everywhere was full of people in T-shirts bouncing around and having fun. Life was sweet for all.
I tried to retire to my caravan directly behind the Iris tent (that isn't a dance tent) but the dance music was causing such vibration that things kept falling off shelves onto my head! With some careful late night shelf adjustment (transferring everything that was left on the shelves to the floor) and some self-administered 1stAid (I should get my sight back in my left eye eventually the doctor seems to think) I got a good night's rest.
Saturday morning came round fast and I had to be careful where I stood to
avoid the new floor storage area. As I walk out of the caravan for my
morning constitutional I bump into Sir Veece Davison the Stormin pretty boy
(according to Stormin sponsors BSH's Blue) looking down at something that
once resembled a tent and is now just a ground sheet pegged to the floor
with strips of tent fabric spread all around it.
'Eyup Veece, what went on here' I asked.
'The mother of all domestic arguments' he said, 'A band member and his
girlfriend had a proper set to. We had to have marshals, security and
eventually the police here. You haven't seen or heard anything like it.'
As he is talking, the zip opened on a tent pegged only some 2 feet away and
out popped the head of the ex Chief Superintendent David Short.
'You must have had a hell of a night David,' I said.
'Why's that?' he asked, giving me a puzzled look.
'Look at this lot! It must have been a right old din.'
'Nope I never heard a thing'
He had only slept through it like a baby and missed the lot! From now on he
will be known as David Clueso Short the coiled sponge.
As the hung over party-goers of Friday night emerge to feed and water themselves down at the spotlessly clean, very varied food court, organised by Steve and Vanessa (the pizza stall was an inspiration) some of the bikes gather for the fun run out to the local Tanfield steam train and the rumble of custom bikes gather for a great bike show, (sponsored by Johnsons of Leeds, fine purveyors of all things camo) where the entrants get a free entry T-shirt.
The Stormin' bike show always holds a bit of magic for me because some of the entrants from the far north don't always make it down to some of the bigger shows so we get to see some really special bikes.
With the products pretty much sold out on Friday night we had a steady stream of visitors to the MAG stand on Saturday, some to claim membership vouchers and some just to chat. Having lost David Clueso Short to Lake Windermere on Saturday morning he was soon replaced by MAG's chairman Jane Chisholm and her bow Hendry. After an executive decision (and giving Bruiser Chinese burns) we decided to shut up shop for the weekend at 7PM so as we could sample some of the delights of Stormin' so we packed away and hit the stalls.
We had a great few hours wandering around the stalls and going on nearly all the rides at the fair. When I say 'we' what I really mean is everyone but me. I get sick on hook a duck never mind spinney round things. No, it was chips, donuts, lager and watching from a safe distance for me. My lad Bart was going on all the rides and spending my money faster than I could count. The fair is undoubtedly a money pit with a 7 year-old kid in tow. One thing I did notice this year was the difference in the customers - a lot less chavs. This confusion was soon cleared up when walking back to the stage area I went through a gate bearing the warning - 'STORMIN THE CASTLE DRESS CODE, NO BURBERRY OR SPORTS WEAR by order of The Management.' Well there you go, that's a pleasant turn up for the books I thought.
As the night wore on and Bart wore out, we left the revellers to it and went to watch the bands from the back stage. It was at this point that I really got to talk to Veece, his French wife Michelle and their kids who all muck in back stage to keep it running smoothly. Veece, who is hoping to start his Eddie Izzard tribute act up and unveil it at next year's Stormin, is constantly practising the stance and the mannerisms. He was enjoying himself as he said he had found his true calling in life, plus everything was going to plan. The headline band UFO had the biggest tour bus in the world, but the reason for this became clear when I saw that all the seats where Shackletons high seats and it had a Stannah stair lift to get them on and off the bus. Actually once on stage, they came alive, rocking their faithful following into the wee small hours.
I had no sooner drifted off to bed and sleep when Sunday morning hit me like a brick. Actually it wasn't yet Sunday morning, nor was it a brick but a big metal torch. I had forgotten about it and left it on the shelf above the bed in the caravan. The non-dance tent, playing dance music vibrated it right off the shelf again. Ouch!
On speaking to the crew on Sunday morning they reported no disturbances all weekend (except for the band member's domestic) and no accidents or injuries (except for Archie Hipkins finger getting sunburn where he kept pointing out of his cabin window and barking orders at people). A fantastic result, months of preparation and everyone's hard work had paid off.
Jim was suitably relaxed all weekend with his placebo Prozac, Liz had gone through 15 boxes of Smarties. The last thing I saw though as I left the site was a crowd gathered around Liz who was wearing Marigolds, carrying a gallon drum of Exlax, a rubber ring and standing next to a portable toilet. I stopped to ask what was going on, only to be told Jim was in there screaming for a midwife. Judging by the sounds he was making he would have done better with a seal trainer. When I spoke to him on the phone later, he said 'I can't, remember eating a gate post wrapped in barbed wire' - bless.
A massive well done to all the Stormin team. A great event and a great time was had by all. I can tell you that 1036 marshalling hours where recorded. On top of that the stage crew put in another 90 or so. Jane 'the minx' Gilroy (who is in charge of the marshals booking in) thinks that you could throw another 300 hours in for committee members who don't log their hours. (With mine, Bruisers and the other stand volunteers as well, that has to be around 2000 hours in total). That's a massive effort all round. 'The most marshal hours worked' trophy was won by a chap called Richard Boon and I seem to remember being told it was for doing over 80 hours. Durham MAG group put in a startling 246 hours between them and should be highly commended for their dedication. The committee have asked that I say, they would like to thank them all and everyone else who worked their socks off, for your superb efforts at a great rally.
Homer
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