JERSEY INTERNATIONAL MOTORING FESTIVAL 4TH-6TH JUNE 2010

We took our 1934 Standard Avon DHC and met up for lunch at the Sparkford Inn with the other two Standards making the trip to the JIFM, Steve Smeltzer in the 1927 V4 and Dennis and Sheila Brown in their 1930 Selby,

We had entered the Festival in the Touring Class; there was also a Competition Class for those taking part in sprint, hill climb and demonstration events. We felt this wasn’t for us, we preferred to watch!

Having spent an overnight stay in Weymouth to catch the early "fast" ferry to Jersey we set off to join the queue. There were plenty of other classic and vintage vehicles waiting when we arrived and some friendly banter ensued with others going to the same event. After being loaded onto the car deck we were informed that the "fast" ferry would not be quite as fast as it was only working on three of its four engines! This meant we would not be able to use the Thursday afternoon for a visit to the Durrell zoo.

We found our hotel which turned out to be a little oasis to return to after some intense events arranged by the Jersey organizers.

The weather was kind to us over the whole event and we had the hood down all the time. Wednesday morning we gathered on the Peoples Park in St Helier for a road run to a garden centre for coffee and sticky bun, we were then supposed to return to the park in time to attend a welcome reception at the Town Hall in St Helier. We got hopelessly lost and missed most of the reception, but not the food; we were not alone. It proved very difficult to navigate around the lanes of Jersey, road signs did not exist except on main roads and the road names were only on one side, so could not be seen if approaching the "wrong" way. The afternoon run was to Vinchelez du Haut Manor, owned by the patron of the charity receiving a donation from the Festival. The Manor was very impressive, very similar to some residences we had seen on our visits to France. A large marquee had been erected on the lawns and tables laid with white cloths and matching china. We were served a lovely tea of sandwiches, scones cream and jam and various cakes. It was then on to the sand dunes overlooking the evening sprint event where we watched some fantastic machinery competing against the clock along the coast road which had been closed for the purpose.

Lunch was taken at the Royal Jersey Golf Club and consisted of the biggest mountain of sea food we had ever been faced with including lobster, crevettes, etc. all locally caught. It was amazing! The cars had been parked across the road from the Golf Club as their car parking was limited. To get back to our vehicles we ran the gauntlet of the golfers taking aim at us, or so it seemed! We decided to take our own sightseeing route in the afternoon to see the eastern coast of the island, which is very picturesque.

Day 3 Sunday saw us back at the park in St Helier lined up with other classics both individual entrants and car clubs. We opted out of the run as there were lots of events at the park. The weather was a bit colder, but it stayed dry. A triangular circuit had been laid out using closed roads next to the park and we stayed to watch demonstrations by karts (mustn’t call them go-karts apparently), driven by all ages from 6 year olds upwards. Rally cars and racing motorbikes, even formula one cars went round the track including a Cooper Bristol, Toleman which had been driven by Ayrton Senna and Alan Jones’ Williams. We had lunch in the Grand Hotel where we also attended the finale Gala Dinner that evening.

It was altogether an enjoyable long weekend, and well worth going.

Our group split up on the Monday morning, Steve, Dennis and Sheila went to the zoo and Bob and I spent an enjoyable morning sightseeing along the south of the island and taking lunch in St Helier before all meeting up again to catch the ferry. The ferry was again running very late and we ended up having a very difficult journey that evening back to Frome from Weymouth in pouring rain in the dark, thank goodness for cats’ eyes! The rest of our party had booked to stay in Weymouth that night as they had further to travel than us, by the time we arrived home at 11.30pm we were wishing that we had too!

(August 2010)