Having just about recovered from the Manchester to Blackpool bike ride the day earlier it was a relaxing rail journey south beyond London to meet up with my friends Paul and Chris who were traveling with me to the War and Peace Revival Festival 2014 at Folkstone Racecourse.
War & Peace Exhibitors band
The plan was to get to their house, stop overnight and then travel to the show on the Tuesday afternoon. I did something similar last year but rather than doing a weekend visit as a punter, this year we were part of the show.
In January 2013 Chris purchased a land rover ‘Snatch’ vehicle which dates back to the later years when the British Army were permanently deployed in Northern Ireland. There were apparently only 218 of these vehicles and like many of the decommissioned military vehicles which were still serviceable, it has been taken on as a project by enthusiasts.
Our tent with the Snatch in the foreground
So we were booked in as exhibitors and would be part of the site for the full five days.
War and Peace is the largest festival of collections of military vehicles in the world and as such attracts people from all over the globe with over 3000 vehicles being exhibited.
Oh yes, and we were camping. A tent had been purchased, but owing to it being bigger than my friends back garden, it was entirely untested. None of us had ever camped before either. So what could possibly go wrong…. :-S
I arrived in good time and we ate splendidly along with friends who were visiting the show later in the week. It was all very civilised! The Tuesday morning was spent packing. And packing. And packing. The snatch was full to the brim with everything we thought we’d need, including vast amounts of food we planned on cooking whilst away.
Due to work commitments we were late away by about six hours and finally arrived at the show where we were pitched up next to another group of land rover snatch vehicles. We then spent a comedy two hours erecting the tent for the first time relying on a YouTube video we had viewed before setting out showing how it was done.
They didn’t finish the construction in the dark. We did.
Gourmet evening meal was a bag of crisps and a fizzy drink but we didn’t care. We were at the show and we were on holiday!
Spitfires and pilots
American base with a distant view of some of the living history exhibition.
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