Billing 2006

Help from Land Rover Enthusiasts.

	Trade was doing well on the Matt Savage stand, then at about 2.30pm on the Saturday a big black cloud suddenly was above us. Within minutes the rain came. It had been really hot for the past few weeks so a thunderstorm was inevitable. As the cloud and the rain came we started to move all the things from outside to undercover, but it all happened too quickly. Rain is not so bad, but the wind...
There were five of us; myself, my wife Liz, our two boys Ted and Tom, and helping us was our nephew William. When the wind suddenly came there were about 9 customers in our marquee, sheltering from the rain and looking at compressors etc. With one big whoosh the whole marquee lifted up and instinctively we all (customers too) grabbed on to the tent frame to stop it being blown into the air.
	Then that was it, the wind and rain was full on. We all stayed like this for what seemed like hours, the rain was coming at us horizontally, the wind was blowing everything off the shelves, the tent was trying to take off. Our youngest son Tom (7 yrs) was not at all happy, in fact he was holding on to me crying and saying he wanted to go home! We were all wet through to the skin. When the frame of the tent stared to buckle, one of the people holding on had a good idea to throw some of the tow ropes over the whole tent, this worked well as we could hold the whole thing down a little better. Throughout all of this I am thinking to myself  we are surely going to have to pack up and go home. To do this would be VERY bad, as we have to turn over a certain amount of money to break even. As it takes the whole show to do this, to miss out on the trade on Saturday afternoon AND Sunday would be financial disaster.
But the wind and rain kept on throwing the stand about. Items were flying off the shelves, all the leaflets and brochures were flapping about, the boxes were swelling up with the rain inside them, the books and DVD covers were soaked. We all wanted to see the end of the storm. After what seemed an eternity it started to stop. It was still raining, but the wind had died down.
	We all started to dismantle the pathetic remains of the frame tent and lay the plastic sections over what was left. I had no idea what to do! Realistically there was no way of putting the marquee back together, the top was ripped, some of the joints had broken, and many of the poles were bent, but we needed something to cover the stand.
I cycled around the trade stands hoping to find someone selling cheap gazebos to no avail. I asked one of the Billing staff if they knew where I could buy a gazebo of some sort, they sent me off to the little camping shop near the fairground at Billling, they had nothing! But they suggested I went just down the road a short way to a big garden centre. So off I cycled on my son's mountain bike (that is a little too small for me.)  There they were, a huge stack of £19.99 gazebos! So I grabbed four and took them to the check out. It is pretty difficult carrying four large, heavy boxes, but nowhere near as difficult as trying to cycle with them!! After a lot of starting, stopping and swearing I managed to get back.
	My uncle had turned up for the afternoon. He had come to have a look around the show and have a cup of tea with us, but when he was faced with all this devastation he realized a cup of tea would have to be worked for!
We started to assemble the gazebos;  passing by were some regular Billing attendants from Ireland. I see these guys every year, we say 'hello, so we're all here again!' and so on, they buy some parts, and that's it until the next year. Anyway, they were passing by and asked if we'd like a hand. 'YES please' said my uncle! And then the cleaning up began.
	The gazebos started to take shape, and the whole thing was soon looking like it did before.
By the time we'd finished tidying up it was about 8pm. But against all the odds we had done it, ready to keep on trading on the Sunday.
	I would really like to say thank you to my very wet family, all the people that got soaked holding the tent down, the Irish guys that helped put up the gazebos, our friend Sabastian with a heater in his car and various other people that were passing by and stopped to help. Without all of your help I think I would have curled up into a ball and cried! See you next year!

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