Despite having a bad back, and being advised to avoid alcohol, cold, damp and vigourous exercise I joined the Scogui party for my first rally. The journey to the north east was truncated by a stop to pick up Ali the SSAGO chair from his temporary home in Doncaster, and to get chips (scaring the girl serving as it was her first night). After yet another stop at Scotch Corner, we finally got to Moor House just before midnight but still before the SSAGO Coach (Cardiff-Bristol-Birmingham-Sheffield) and most of the other participants. Once the coach arrived, some firework were set off to welcome us to the Childrens TV rally.
In the main building (my temporary home as my back was not up to camping), there was a TV showing kids TV on a loop. All the programmes which 1980s kids TV programmes. The campfire was ideal because it was in a hallow in the ground, allowing singing with impunity. I am not sure how but the organiser had acquired some flares (hand held), so for a while it resembled a Turkish football match. After much singing I thought I better disappear to bed before they locked me out.
On Saturday morning I was woken up by the activity of the kitchen, and someone practicising bashing pans (do you need to practice?). The morning was spent exploring the site, with a combination of serious and silly challenges such as feeding someone with jelly via chop sticks. After lunching on site, we prepared to move off-site for the afternoons activities.
For most people the afternoon meant either the Metro Centre or Durham, but other stayed on site to learn Greek Dancing or disappearing to Beamish. I choose to go bowling with Carrie, Zoe and Andy. After a couple of games it 3 o’clock so some joined the pub crawl, and others went shopping. About 5pm we got rounded up onto an already raucous bus, for singing all the way back to Moor House. On arrival at Moor House we were fed and back out of the door again for the barn dance back in Durham.
The barn dance was at Durham Students Union down an unfeasibly large amount of stairs to a large hall. As the coach could not take all the rally goers in one go, there was some time to kill so Fitch from Heriot Watt introduced us to some drinking games. All the clubs had gone in different costumes, we had choosen Captain Pugwash but as I had only decided to go at the last minute I had a rather lame “we are the champions” costume. Despite some brilliant efforts, we ended up coming second to Cardiff who were Grange Hill. The first group were whisked off before “Auld Lands Syne”, and back to the site. Like the previous night my bed was under threat, so I disappeared off to bed relatively early.
On Sunday morning there were silly games, which allowed us to go back around the site. This went on for a few hours, before an attempted Kidnap attempt of a staff member which included the cargonetting and smoke bombs (my memory on this is a bit faded now). After the goodbyes, and off loading the excess beverages to Barrys brother we headed south for the long journey south, and the evening ended in JCs (as was the custom of the time).
Written by Martin Whelan
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