Recovery isn’t the best known branch of motorsport support services – I’m not telling anyone anything new there, I’m sure. It therefore interests me how people come to be Recovery Operators. Until AMRO was set up, there was no central agency to deal with Recovery, so even if one knew about recovery – and that can’t be taken for granted even amongst regular marshals even today - it would have been difficult to know what to do if it was an idea that took one’s fancy. With this thought in mind, I got to thinking, “How do people become involved in Recovery?”, and I thought that maybe a recounting of my Recovery baptism would lead to others coming forward.

In 1993, I developed a reasonably debilitating illness which affected almost all aspects of my daily living for the better part of six months. During the treatment, one of those people treating me said that I needed to develop some outside interests, as my habit of working and sleeping, with little in between, had exacerbated my problem. With his help, I recalled that I had been very active in my local motor club some years previously, and that I had really enjoyed marshalling on rallies (I know, it’s sad …!). By one of those coincidences that happen occasionally, this chap’s wife was chairman of the north-east region of the British Rally Marshall’s Association – a body I had never previously come across - and I was duly put in touch with the membership secretary, and I joined. I attended a couple of training days, meeting a small tubby chap called Richard Ashton who thought that my nurse training made me a candidate for joining something called Calder Rescue. Fortunately, I decided to delay any decisions about that for some time! (Those who know Calder will know why I feel that I have had a lucky escape – those who don’t will hear the stories at some time, and come to understand). However, I marshalled a couple of events, and then Ian Joustra, a friend of mine from work, came to see how I was, and upon hearing that I had rediscovered my interest in motorsport announced that some of the members of Peak and Dukeries Landrover Club had recently licenced as Recovery Operators. Not only that, but a group of them were going down to something called a “hillrally” in Wales that weekend, and would I like to come? Never having heard of such an event, and with nothing else pressing, I said yes, got my hiking gear together, scrounged a tent off my ex-girlfriend’s parents (long story …), and set off for Wales with Ian in his Range Rover.

As we made the journey to Builth Wells, Ian explained that the Peak Recovery had been set up after a chance conversation with someone at a Landrover event and that some members of Pennine Landrover Club who already did Recovery had been extremely helpful in training the fledgling Peak outfit. Three or four of the new crews had licensed earlier that year, and were just getting used to being out on events alone. When we reached the Royal Welsh Agricultural Showground in Builth Wells, I met the others – Bill Williams, David Dean, David Ledger, and Paul Charlesworth – and was impressed by the way they helped a complete stranger put up a tent big enough to hold a cricket-match in (I had been told that the tent was big, but I hadn’t had time to do a practice run on putting it up!). At various times over the weekend, I spent time in most of the units (as I learned to call the vehicles I’d previously thought of as Landrovers), learning the ropes of how to be a good crewman.

The event had many interesting moments, as anyone who has been to a Hillrally will know – but the most memorable came not from the competitors as from the people I was with. I still clearly remember the voice of Dave Ledger (not involved in Recovery now) coming over the CB on a road section on the way to a stage, stating that he had come off the road. When we went to investigate, he was being supported by a bit of hedge on the edge of a 20ft drop into a river having lost control of his V8 Landrover on a bend. As we were recovering him, the landowner pulled up and informed us that this was a common occurrence – only a few days before a police Landrover had done the same!

Later that evening, whilst giving me a demonstration of how to change Landrover wheels, David Dean hurled the spare wheel off his bonnet. Unfortunately, that year the campsite was where the service area is now, and those of you who know the site are aware that it ends in a steep hill … the wheel vanished into the darkness, accelerating all the time, followed by David, gradually disappearing into the gloom until only his hands and hair could be seen bobbing up and down. I still feel a bit guilty about being unable to help David due to laughing so much.

However, I got my come-uppance the next day when sitting in what is now my usual seat, next to Bill in Peak 4, facing a descent from a stage which sloped both downhill at a steep angle, and also to the side. This side slope ended some 200ft below in a rocky stream bed, and I was not filled with much confidence when the driver, whom I had only met two days previously, said “ I don’t like sideslopes”, and what little confidence I had dribbled away when I looked at him and saw how much he was sweating! There is nothing at Altom Towers to match the fear generated by sitting next to a man whose driving skills you have no idea about who swears furiously from the top of a potentially fatal hill to the bottom! From then, despite everything including the mud, I was hooked on Recovery.

I applied for my trainee license, and went out on every event I could, either at the side of Bill or Ian. It is strange to think that it is coming up for the fifth anniversary of my first Recovery outing, and that in those five years I have been involved in some very difficult situations. I think that one of the most useful things that has happened to Recovery is the founding of AMRO – the training is worth its weight in gold, and I believe that it is giving us credibility with other members of the rally support and organisation community.

Most importantly it brings together people with the same interest who would otherwise not know each other exist. That this has helped to make it easier to work together on complex recoveries is again very important – I have first hand knowledge of this, but that is another story. But now it’s over to you – what circumstances led you to give up your weekends for a lot of tedium punctuated by dirty activity?

Jeremy Wickins,

Crewman,

Peak Rally Recovery.