Ken Rawlinson Hellingly Transport Festival Report – Sunday 27th August

Myself (650SS), Robert Tuck (Dominator 99) and David Hulme (BSA Gold Star tourer) rode to the Flower Farm in Godstone yesterday to meet up with Simon Smith (Commando) before heading off along the A22 to the Hellingly Transport Festival, which is near Hailsham, where we met up with Graham Holcombe and Bill Plummer who had travelled by car. I had managed to get 4 free passes to the event but in the end they just waved us all through without checking anything.

The weather was fine and mainly sunny and it stayed dry all day including the trip back.

The A22 is quite a nice road and there was not a lot of traffic, you have to go via East Grinstead but that was not much of a problem at all and we sailed through.

I personally like these Country Fair Festivals as there is plenty to see and keep you occupied. There are classic cars, bikes, lorries etc. as well as army vehicles, organs, a fairground, an auto-jumble, food and drink stalls, plus a beer tent selling real ale from barrels. At the event I met up with Steve, an old colleague who was the president of the defunct South London Classic MC club that I once belonged to. Steve had one of his vans (as the green/cream van pictured) with a BSA DBD34 in it and his “assistants/nurse” made Simon Smith and I a nice cup of coffee and gave us some biscuits which was kind of them. Steve is an avid bike collector and has around 150 nice bikes as well as a few vintage lorries but unfortunately he is quite ill and will be selling his collection of bikes and some of his lorries, I wish him well.

All in all a very pleasant ride and day out. I will book early, for this event, next year and try and get some more free passes so then perhaps more of you could join us?

Best wishes – Ken