Post by Brian M on Jan 30, 2009 23:29:10 GMT
From: Brian (Original Message) Sent: 27/09/2004 07:44
Hello Brian,
Thanks for that welcome.
I am delighted to respond, and I think the sensible way is to say something of my background and my/our Safaris, but there is a lot of it. I am therefore doing it as an email to yourself, but this is not confidential; perhaps you would select from it whatever you think appropriate to put on the message board.
I am potentially interested in a Safari get-together. I was for some time a member of the Safari Caravan Club, but left them when I got fed up with there being almost no Safaris left in the club apart from our own family plus the Chairman.
However I have a number of other interests and commitments, so I might or might not be able to attend a get-together; much will depend on dates. These days my caravanning tends to be one very extended touring holiday per year; anything else is a bonus, but I usually get in a few short trips as well as the main holiday. This year, main holiday to West Country, with short trips (so far) to Scotland and Anglesey; last year main holiday to Scottish Highlands, with a short trip to Berkshire Gloucestershire & on to Norfolk, and another one to Lancashire (Clitheroe). Outside the main holiday, caravanning has to compete with musical and church and sailing interests and commitments, and although I have already retired once I am now pottering with running a part-time business. It is supposed to be strictly part-time, but ......!
I started caravanning as a small boy 53 years ago, with my parents and younger brother, but it was not until 1974 that I had my introduction to Safaris. At that time I was teaching in North Devon, and in December 1974 my parents (living in Liverpool) told me they had bought a Safari 12/2, but because of the distance I did not see it until either that Christmas holiday or the following Easter holiday. Father was on the point of retiring, and they were looking to change their then caravan for a new one - the first time in their lives that they had ever bought new - that would see them out for the rest of their caravanning days. Little did they realise at that point that they had another 25 years plus of caravanning ahead of them......
They toured the UK very extensively with that caravan, and started rallying with it; they joined the Safari Club and some years later they founded the United Reformed Church Caravan Fellowship, and they remained enthusiastic members of both organisations for the rest of their lives. I was more interested in yacht cruising than caravanning (indeed I still am, but with changed circumstances and increasing age I have now given up yacht cruising, although I am about to return to dinghy sailing), however I joined them for a handful of extended holidays and occasional short breaks, and on a least one occasion I borrowed their caravan.
Ten years later they felt that the time had come to change, and traditional Safaris had gone out of production two years earlier, so they asked Vernon Meadows (the then owner - or senior partner? - of Pearman Briggs, the one-time principal Safari dealer for the whole country) to find them a good 14/2. He duly did so, finding them a 1982 model - one of the last ones ever. They were in the Scottish Highlands at the time but they provisionally bought it over the telephone and then raced down to Gloucester to see it and confirm the purchase.
They kept that one for seven years, again touring the UK very extensively with it. For many years it was their proud boast that there was not a single month of the year when they were not caravanning somewhere. Not actually with that caravan, but with its successor, they took delivery of it in September and when they were back in Gloucestershire in December the same year they booked it back into Pearman Briggs for annual service. When Vernon pointed out that it should not need servicing as it had been done before they purchased it, only three months previously, Father asked him whether he realised that in the intervening three months they had given it well over many other people's annual usage; they had had a total of about eight weeks away in it and had towed it well over 3000 miles.
In 1989 they made a disastrous error; the Safari needed some major work doing, and even when the work had been done it was still going to be a 7 year old van, and of a make no longer in production, so they asked Vernon whether it would be more sensible to change to a new van of a different make. On his advice they did so, a top-of-the-range Abbey (GT 215 if I remember the designation correctly), but this proved to be absolutely riddled with faults, some of them very serious and at least one potentially lethal (a problem with the mains wiring that could easily have caused electrocution and/or a major fire), and we were none of us happy with it.
After just 18 months, in which we had found one fault after another, we noticed that the floor was starting to delaminate. This was while parents were down in Gloucestershire with me, and they were to start their main annual tour of the Scottish Highlands the following week, so Pearman Briggs assessed the problem and advised them that they were safe to do the Scottish trip and arranged for them to bring them van in immediately hey returned. Then, to add to their concerns, time and time again they found on that trip that other caravanners would wander over and say "I see you've got an Abbey like mine; what problems have you found with your one?"
While they were in Scotland they therefore took the decision to revert to a Safari, even though this would necessarily mean buying an elderly one, and since I was living in Gloucestershire (always the home of the marque) I was commissioned to find them a good one. After looking at a few, and registering our interest with every caravan dealer in the area, again it was Pearman Briggs who turned up trumps with a nice 1981 14/2, originally owned by Ted Martin.
They kept that until late 2001, by which time Mother had died a couple of years earlier, and Father and I had continued to caravan together in either his caravan or mine, but there was no longer any point in taking both vans away in company. However he was still keen on his rallying, which did not attract me, and since these rallies were at weekends the dates clashed with my commitments as a church organist, so he tended to go off to occasional rallies without me.
By the autumn of 2001, at the age of 86, he felt that he had now reached the point where on his own he could no longer manage a caravan that he had to tow, and - absolutely disastrously - we took the decision to buy a motorhome between us, primarily to facilitate his continuing his rallying. That was a disaster because, although very attractive as a caravan, we were never going to have enough use for it to justify the appallingly large outlay, and I soon realised that it was not satisfactory in its role as a car. Although I actually enjoy driving (and manoeuvring) large vehicles I found that by solo car standards it was impracticably cumbersome, noisy at speed, very thirsty, and very restricing in terms of where one can park - particularly since Father was by then too disabled to be able to walk far. And of course, when on holiday one requires satisfactory performance in both roles; which is why I am now absolutely convinced that a good towed outfit is far preferable.
In the event, he was never able to use it on his own - which was the primary reason we had bought it - and although we had no way of knowing it when we made the purchase it turned out that he had only another three months to live. After he died I sold it as soon as I could, and the drop in value after just six months, and just three weekends away, was more than a year's pension!
I had taken early retirement in December 1997 in order to look after my parents in their final years, and in 2001 while we were considering buying the motorhome we discussed what to do with Father's Safari. I had my own lovely 17/2, but this was starting to need major structural work to repair rot in three of the corners, so I had the choice of "inheriting" his 14/2 or repairing my own 17/2. Eventually I decided to stick with my 17/2, and we passed on Father's 14/2 to my brother, who still has it.
Going back nearly twenty years, in September 1982 I had been working in North Devon and owned a 17th century cottage there, when I took a job move to Gloucester. I did not want to sell my house in Devon, and at first the school were willing to provide me with a school house on the campus, but then a few years later they wanted to redevelop the site and they gave me generous notice that they would require me to move out. I explored the possibility of changing the yacht to one large enough to live aboard permanently, and bringing her up to Gloucester, but eventually and reluctantly decided that there were too many problems in that route. At that point Father suggested that I consider buying a large touring caravan as a business pied-a-terre, and referred me to Pearman Briggs.
They sold me a Cotswold Windrush 15/2, which served me very well. That make has a family connection to Safaris, and in some ways they are built to similar quality standards; apparently after the Pearman brothers had set up Safari Caravans they split up, and one of them left Safaris and went on to found the Cotswold firm, taking with him many of his Safari ideas and practices. However it was a little on the small side for living in permanently, and in some respects it was not quite as well finished as the Safari, so I found myself hankering after a Safari. The problem there was that if I was finding a 15 ft van just a little small I would certainly not want to downsize to a 14 ft, and Safari never made a 15 ft 2-berth. Nonetheless, when I was offered the possibility of a nice 14/2 being sold by a member of the Safari Club - I think David Deakin - I very seriously considered it, but decided eventually that it was just too small.
At that time my parents used to visit me in Gloucester over Christmas and New Year, bringing their caravan down, and one afternoon in January 1990 when I came in from work Mother happened to mention that they had been in Pearman Briggs that morning and that while they were there a Safari 17/2 had come in, to be prepared for sale. I immediately excused myself, went over to the telephone, and bought it then and there, subject only to satisfactory inspection the following day.
That 17/2 was a 1978 model, and in beautiful condition although the interior needed a thorough clean; the one previous owner was the managing director of Morco (the caravan accessory product manufacturer), and he had kept it in the south of France. He had fitted every conceivable accessory, plus very limited mains electrics, and had very recently had the van resprayed. As soon as I acquired it I modernised it further; his water heater was undersized and temperamental, so I replaced it with a Carver Cascade gas/electric one, and his mains wiring was limited and defective, so I completely rewired that. Seven years later when I took early retirement I had the upholstery replaced and also fitted other accessories, including an alarm (following a break-in to my parents' 14/2 outside our own house).
That served as my business pied-a-terre for seven years, living it in more or less continuously, and I also used it for a limited number of holidays. Then once I retired it reverted to its more traditional use for holiday touring; I had returned to live with parents, in their late old age, and we did quite a lot of caravanning, taking both outfits in company. This included several tours of the Scottish Highlands, plus numerous shorter trips for rallies or other short breaks to all parts of the country. Very occasionally we would also go off separately.
Once I had retired the original reason for the choice of the 17/2 no longer applied, and I have to admit that if I had been starting from scratch looking for a van for holiday touring I would probably not have chosen such a large one. Undoubtedly parents were delighted with their 14/2s, and I had some very enjoyable holidays with them in both of them. However having got used to the space of the 17/2, and in particular having got used to the joys of an entirely separate kitchen (and a door that can screen it off so that when dining one is not surrounded by the dirty cooking pots and the plates from the previous course), with a sink of a much more comfortable height than the 14/2 offers, and a sideboard which is large enough and prominent enough to use as a display surface, and with enough storage space to have no problem at all with stowing things where they are convenient of access, I would not now want to go back to the smaller van.
One does however notice the difference on the road; although I now tow with a Discovery, which barely notices the caravan behind it, I used to tow with a Volvo 240. While this handled the 17/2 remarkably well, apart from a tendency to overheat on long hills, I was towing with a weight ratio of around a whopping 120% and the car certainly felt that it had a big load on the back. Although my parents regarded their successive 14/2s as heavy vans, whenever I towed them they immediately felt dramatically lighter than the 17/2 that I was used to. And very very occasionally the 17/2 can be a big brute to manoeuvre in a really tight situation, but I have never yet found a situation where it is not possible to manoeuvre it, or where it is necessary to unhitch in order to do so.
Over the years I had come across a total of perhaps three other 17/2s in the flesh, so to speak, and had seen a tiotal of I think two others advertised. From what I had seen I was absolutely convinced that I had a real gem; that very few had been buillt and still fewer had survived, and that of the survivors my one was possible the finest example around, although there was one other that vied with it for that accolade, and each slightly outclassed the other in different respects. This other very fine example, well known in the club, was a 1980 model which had originally been owned by Gordon Tombs and had then passed to Bob Bingham, who by about 2000 had become Chairman of the club..
By 2000, by which time my own well loved caravan was 22 years old and starting to be recognised even by the layman as a classic, still in visually immaculate condition, it was becoming clear that there were structural problems in three of the corners, due to rot. I suspect this was because the aluminium panels had started to oxidise from the inside, and a number of pinpricks had appeared, which I had attempted to fill (with paint) but I had not managed to make a complete repair. I decided that the van was worth repairing, but that without covered accomodation in which to work it was too big a job for me to undertake in the proper way (which would be to take off the exterior panels first), so I was starting to consider alternative ways of doing the job, and also starting to explore the costs of having the work done professionally. Meanwhile I continued using the van for the 2001 season.
By late 2001 I had decided to get the work done professionally, and by booking it into Harringtons for their slack time of year (January/February) I was expecting to have to pay between £3,000 to £5,000, and I had felt that it was worth that outlay. Then, out of the blue, Bob Bingham told me that he was considering changing to a younger van, so I immediately asked him for first option on his Safari.
Some months later, in 2002, Bob did indeed decide to sell, and I bought it from him. This van is therefore the one that I now use, and the other is in dry storage. It is structurally sound, and again in beautiful condition, although not as well equipped as my other one; however I am gradually addressing that.
Apart from them being superb caravans, and a delight for that reason alone, with both Safaris I also take pleasure in the number of people on caravan sites who go out of their way to compliment me on it. I even had a chap apprehend me at a filling station last month, when I was towing the 1980 van, who wanted to admire it and to enquire whether I would consider selling it!
The purchase of Bob's 1980 van leaves me with the 1978 van now surplus to requirements. For some time I had hoped to be able to pass it on within the family, but for very good personal reasons there are no takers; my brother is heavily into classic cars and classic caravans, but he already has his 14/2 plus a Cheltenham and a Castleton, and his towcar already finds that the 14/2 Safari is heavy enough to dramatically increase his fuel consumption when towing, so he doesn't want an even heavier van. Meanwhile the younger members of the family are not really into caravanning; my godson leads a very different lifestyle, with a young family and a 17th century cottage, and a flourishing but very demanding business as a sole trader, and his family own holiday properties in Devon and in Spain, so he simply could not envisage giving the Safari any use. In any case if they did want to use a caravan occasionally they are always welcome to join me if I am caravanning at the time, or to borrow mine if I am not using it. I had alternatively hoped it might go to a niece, whose husband was by profession a coachbuilder, but they are now going through a divorce, so that is also a non-starter.
As a result I am undecided what to do with it, but while I am renting dry space for it in a farm building it is not coming to any harm where it is. However I would however like to get it out of there so that I can keep my 1980 there instead of in the cul-de-sac outside the house; both 17/2s and the 14/2 have over the years been occasionally scratched there by some local yobbo doing a "key job", and although it is only one scratch in each case and not desperately deep it is very irritating and I would like to remove the risk of a repetition. Since I don't want to pay for storage of both vans I need to at some stage do something about the older one.
The only things that are certain is that it is not saleable (except as a restoration project), but that it is far too good to scrap. I would like it restored, but although I would readily have taken on a job of that magnitude thirty years ago (indeed I have in the past done the equivalent with both vintage yachts and classic cars) I rather jib at doing the job myself now; with other interests and other commitments (so limited time for caravans), and with no suitable premises. I have no suitable space at home, and I am not sure that I would be able to work on it at its present location, and in any case the latter is too far from home to be able to put in a lot of short working sessions. Even if I were to restore it I would not afterwards have any real use for it, except as a replacement/spare for my 1980 one in the event of the disaster scenario (i.e. major accident or theft). Hence if another Safari enthusiast would like to take it on I might be prepared to part with it.
Yours,
Oliver L. Shaw
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From: Brian Sent: 27/09/2004 07:48
Oliver
Wow - what a fantastic story. I have posted your email unedited as I am sure our members will be interested in reading it all.
I would like to know the serial numbers of any of your Safaris for the register.
Please keep posting your memories of Safaris, I am trying to write a history of the Company and stories like yours can add a lot to my research.
Keep in touch.
Brian Miller
Hello Brian,
Thanks for that welcome.
I am delighted to respond, and I think the sensible way is to say something of my background and my/our Safaris, but there is a lot of it. I am therefore doing it as an email to yourself, but this is not confidential; perhaps you would select from it whatever you think appropriate to put on the message board.
I am potentially interested in a Safari get-together. I was for some time a member of the Safari Caravan Club, but left them when I got fed up with there being almost no Safaris left in the club apart from our own family plus the Chairman.
However I have a number of other interests and commitments, so I might or might not be able to attend a get-together; much will depend on dates. These days my caravanning tends to be one very extended touring holiday per year; anything else is a bonus, but I usually get in a few short trips as well as the main holiday. This year, main holiday to West Country, with short trips (so far) to Scotland and Anglesey; last year main holiday to Scottish Highlands, with a short trip to Berkshire Gloucestershire & on to Norfolk, and another one to Lancashire (Clitheroe). Outside the main holiday, caravanning has to compete with musical and church and sailing interests and commitments, and although I have already retired once I am now pottering with running a part-time business. It is supposed to be strictly part-time, but ......!
I started caravanning as a small boy 53 years ago, with my parents and younger brother, but it was not until 1974 that I had my introduction to Safaris. At that time I was teaching in North Devon, and in December 1974 my parents (living in Liverpool) told me they had bought a Safari 12/2, but because of the distance I did not see it until either that Christmas holiday or the following Easter holiday. Father was on the point of retiring, and they were looking to change their then caravan for a new one - the first time in their lives that they had ever bought new - that would see them out for the rest of their caravanning days. Little did they realise at that point that they had another 25 years plus of caravanning ahead of them......
They toured the UK very extensively with that caravan, and started rallying with it; they joined the Safari Club and some years later they founded the United Reformed Church Caravan Fellowship, and they remained enthusiastic members of both organisations for the rest of their lives. I was more interested in yacht cruising than caravanning (indeed I still am, but with changed circumstances and increasing age I have now given up yacht cruising, although I am about to return to dinghy sailing), however I joined them for a handful of extended holidays and occasional short breaks, and on a least one occasion I borrowed their caravan.
Ten years later they felt that the time had come to change, and traditional Safaris had gone out of production two years earlier, so they asked Vernon Meadows (the then owner - or senior partner? - of Pearman Briggs, the one-time principal Safari dealer for the whole country) to find them a good 14/2. He duly did so, finding them a 1982 model - one of the last ones ever. They were in the Scottish Highlands at the time but they provisionally bought it over the telephone and then raced down to Gloucester to see it and confirm the purchase.
They kept that one for seven years, again touring the UK very extensively with it. For many years it was their proud boast that there was not a single month of the year when they were not caravanning somewhere. Not actually with that caravan, but with its successor, they took delivery of it in September and when they were back in Gloucestershire in December the same year they booked it back into Pearman Briggs for annual service. When Vernon pointed out that it should not need servicing as it had been done before they purchased it, only three months previously, Father asked him whether he realised that in the intervening three months they had given it well over many other people's annual usage; they had had a total of about eight weeks away in it and had towed it well over 3000 miles.
In 1989 they made a disastrous error; the Safari needed some major work doing, and even when the work had been done it was still going to be a 7 year old van, and of a make no longer in production, so they asked Vernon whether it would be more sensible to change to a new van of a different make. On his advice they did so, a top-of-the-range Abbey (GT 215 if I remember the designation correctly), but this proved to be absolutely riddled with faults, some of them very serious and at least one potentially lethal (a problem with the mains wiring that could easily have caused electrocution and/or a major fire), and we were none of us happy with it.
After just 18 months, in which we had found one fault after another, we noticed that the floor was starting to delaminate. This was while parents were down in Gloucestershire with me, and they were to start their main annual tour of the Scottish Highlands the following week, so Pearman Briggs assessed the problem and advised them that they were safe to do the Scottish trip and arranged for them to bring them van in immediately hey returned. Then, to add to their concerns, time and time again they found on that trip that other caravanners would wander over and say "I see you've got an Abbey like mine; what problems have you found with your one?"
While they were in Scotland they therefore took the decision to revert to a Safari, even though this would necessarily mean buying an elderly one, and since I was living in Gloucestershire (always the home of the marque) I was commissioned to find them a good one. After looking at a few, and registering our interest with every caravan dealer in the area, again it was Pearman Briggs who turned up trumps with a nice 1981 14/2, originally owned by Ted Martin.
They kept that until late 2001, by which time Mother had died a couple of years earlier, and Father and I had continued to caravan together in either his caravan or mine, but there was no longer any point in taking both vans away in company. However he was still keen on his rallying, which did not attract me, and since these rallies were at weekends the dates clashed with my commitments as a church organist, so he tended to go off to occasional rallies without me.
By the autumn of 2001, at the age of 86, he felt that he had now reached the point where on his own he could no longer manage a caravan that he had to tow, and - absolutely disastrously - we took the decision to buy a motorhome between us, primarily to facilitate his continuing his rallying. That was a disaster because, although very attractive as a caravan, we were never going to have enough use for it to justify the appallingly large outlay, and I soon realised that it was not satisfactory in its role as a car. Although I actually enjoy driving (and manoeuvring) large vehicles I found that by solo car standards it was impracticably cumbersome, noisy at speed, very thirsty, and very restricing in terms of where one can park - particularly since Father was by then too disabled to be able to walk far. And of course, when on holiday one requires satisfactory performance in both roles; which is why I am now absolutely convinced that a good towed outfit is far preferable.
In the event, he was never able to use it on his own - which was the primary reason we had bought it - and although we had no way of knowing it when we made the purchase it turned out that he had only another three months to live. After he died I sold it as soon as I could, and the drop in value after just six months, and just three weekends away, was more than a year's pension!
I had taken early retirement in December 1997 in order to look after my parents in their final years, and in 2001 while we were considering buying the motorhome we discussed what to do with Father's Safari. I had my own lovely 17/2, but this was starting to need major structural work to repair rot in three of the corners, so I had the choice of "inheriting" his 14/2 or repairing my own 17/2. Eventually I decided to stick with my 17/2, and we passed on Father's 14/2 to my brother, who still has it.
Going back nearly twenty years, in September 1982 I had been working in North Devon and owned a 17th century cottage there, when I took a job move to Gloucester. I did not want to sell my house in Devon, and at first the school were willing to provide me with a school house on the campus, but then a few years later they wanted to redevelop the site and they gave me generous notice that they would require me to move out. I explored the possibility of changing the yacht to one large enough to live aboard permanently, and bringing her up to Gloucester, but eventually and reluctantly decided that there were too many problems in that route. At that point Father suggested that I consider buying a large touring caravan as a business pied-a-terre, and referred me to Pearman Briggs.
They sold me a Cotswold Windrush 15/2, which served me very well. That make has a family connection to Safaris, and in some ways they are built to similar quality standards; apparently after the Pearman brothers had set up Safari Caravans they split up, and one of them left Safaris and went on to found the Cotswold firm, taking with him many of his Safari ideas and practices. However it was a little on the small side for living in permanently, and in some respects it was not quite as well finished as the Safari, so I found myself hankering after a Safari. The problem there was that if I was finding a 15 ft van just a little small I would certainly not want to downsize to a 14 ft, and Safari never made a 15 ft 2-berth. Nonetheless, when I was offered the possibility of a nice 14/2 being sold by a member of the Safari Club - I think David Deakin - I very seriously considered it, but decided eventually that it was just too small.
At that time my parents used to visit me in Gloucester over Christmas and New Year, bringing their caravan down, and one afternoon in January 1990 when I came in from work Mother happened to mention that they had been in Pearman Briggs that morning and that while they were there a Safari 17/2 had come in, to be prepared for sale. I immediately excused myself, went over to the telephone, and bought it then and there, subject only to satisfactory inspection the following day.
That 17/2 was a 1978 model, and in beautiful condition although the interior needed a thorough clean; the one previous owner was the managing director of Morco (the caravan accessory product manufacturer), and he had kept it in the south of France. He had fitted every conceivable accessory, plus very limited mains electrics, and had very recently had the van resprayed. As soon as I acquired it I modernised it further; his water heater was undersized and temperamental, so I replaced it with a Carver Cascade gas/electric one, and his mains wiring was limited and defective, so I completely rewired that. Seven years later when I took early retirement I had the upholstery replaced and also fitted other accessories, including an alarm (following a break-in to my parents' 14/2 outside our own house).
That served as my business pied-a-terre for seven years, living it in more or less continuously, and I also used it for a limited number of holidays. Then once I retired it reverted to its more traditional use for holiday touring; I had returned to live with parents, in their late old age, and we did quite a lot of caravanning, taking both outfits in company. This included several tours of the Scottish Highlands, plus numerous shorter trips for rallies or other short breaks to all parts of the country. Very occasionally we would also go off separately.
Once I had retired the original reason for the choice of the 17/2 no longer applied, and I have to admit that if I had been starting from scratch looking for a van for holiday touring I would probably not have chosen such a large one. Undoubtedly parents were delighted with their 14/2s, and I had some very enjoyable holidays with them in both of them. However having got used to the space of the 17/2, and in particular having got used to the joys of an entirely separate kitchen (and a door that can screen it off so that when dining one is not surrounded by the dirty cooking pots and the plates from the previous course), with a sink of a much more comfortable height than the 14/2 offers, and a sideboard which is large enough and prominent enough to use as a display surface, and with enough storage space to have no problem at all with stowing things where they are convenient of access, I would not now want to go back to the smaller van.
One does however notice the difference on the road; although I now tow with a Discovery, which barely notices the caravan behind it, I used to tow with a Volvo 240. While this handled the 17/2 remarkably well, apart from a tendency to overheat on long hills, I was towing with a weight ratio of around a whopping 120% and the car certainly felt that it had a big load on the back. Although my parents regarded their successive 14/2s as heavy vans, whenever I towed them they immediately felt dramatically lighter than the 17/2 that I was used to. And very very occasionally the 17/2 can be a big brute to manoeuvre in a really tight situation, but I have never yet found a situation where it is not possible to manoeuvre it, or where it is necessary to unhitch in order to do so.
Over the years I had come across a total of perhaps three other 17/2s in the flesh, so to speak, and had seen a tiotal of I think two others advertised. From what I had seen I was absolutely convinced that I had a real gem; that very few had been buillt and still fewer had survived, and that of the survivors my one was possible the finest example around, although there was one other that vied with it for that accolade, and each slightly outclassed the other in different respects. This other very fine example, well known in the club, was a 1980 model which had originally been owned by Gordon Tombs and had then passed to Bob Bingham, who by about 2000 had become Chairman of the club..
By 2000, by which time my own well loved caravan was 22 years old and starting to be recognised even by the layman as a classic, still in visually immaculate condition, it was becoming clear that there were structural problems in three of the corners, due to rot. I suspect this was because the aluminium panels had started to oxidise from the inside, and a number of pinpricks had appeared, which I had attempted to fill (with paint) but I had not managed to make a complete repair. I decided that the van was worth repairing, but that without covered accomodation in which to work it was too big a job for me to undertake in the proper way (which would be to take off the exterior panels first), so I was starting to consider alternative ways of doing the job, and also starting to explore the costs of having the work done professionally. Meanwhile I continued using the van for the 2001 season.
By late 2001 I had decided to get the work done professionally, and by booking it into Harringtons for their slack time of year (January/February) I was expecting to have to pay between £3,000 to £5,000, and I had felt that it was worth that outlay. Then, out of the blue, Bob Bingham told me that he was considering changing to a younger van, so I immediately asked him for first option on his Safari.
Some months later, in 2002, Bob did indeed decide to sell, and I bought it from him. This van is therefore the one that I now use, and the other is in dry storage. It is structurally sound, and again in beautiful condition, although not as well equipped as my other one; however I am gradually addressing that.
Apart from them being superb caravans, and a delight for that reason alone, with both Safaris I also take pleasure in the number of people on caravan sites who go out of their way to compliment me on it. I even had a chap apprehend me at a filling station last month, when I was towing the 1980 van, who wanted to admire it and to enquire whether I would consider selling it!
The purchase of Bob's 1980 van leaves me with the 1978 van now surplus to requirements. For some time I had hoped to be able to pass it on within the family, but for very good personal reasons there are no takers; my brother is heavily into classic cars and classic caravans, but he already has his 14/2 plus a Cheltenham and a Castleton, and his towcar already finds that the 14/2 Safari is heavy enough to dramatically increase his fuel consumption when towing, so he doesn't want an even heavier van. Meanwhile the younger members of the family are not really into caravanning; my godson leads a very different lifestyle, with a young family and a 17th century cottage, and a flourishing but very demanding business as a sole trader, and his family own holiday properties in Devon and in Spain, so he simply could not envisage giving the Safari any use. In any case if they did want to use a caravan occasionally they are always welcome to join me if I am caravanning at the time, or to borrow mine if I am not using it. I had alternatively hoped it might go to a niece, whose husband was by profession a coachbuilder, but they are now going through a divorce, so that is also a non-starter.
As a result I am undecided what to do with it, but while I am renting dry space for it in a farm building it is not coming to any harm where it is. However I would however like to get it out of there so that I can keep my 1980 there instead of in the cul-de-sac outside the house; both 17/2s and the 14/2 have over the years been occasionally scratched there by some local yobbo doing a "key job", and although it is only one scratch in each case and not desperately deep it is very irritating and I would like to remove the risk of a repetition. Since I don't want to pay for storage of both vans I need to at some stage do something about the older one.
The only things that are certain is that it is not saleable (except as a restoration project), but that it is far too good to scrap. I would like it restored, but although I would readily have taken on a job of that magnitude thirty years ago (indeed I have in the past done the equivalent with both vintage yachts and classic cars) I rather jib at doing the job myself now; with other interests and other commitments (so limited time for caravans), and with no suitable premises. I have no suitable space at home, and I am not sure that I would be able to work on it at its present location, and in any case the latter is too far from home to be able to put in a lot of short working sessions. Even if I were to restore it I would not afterwards have any real use for it, except as a replacement/spare for my 1980 one in the event of the disaster scenario (i.e. major accident or theft). Hence if another Safari enthusiast would like to take it on I might be prepared to part with it.
Yours,
Oliver L. Shaw
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From: Brian Sent: 27/09/2004 07:48
Oliver
Wow - what a fantastic story. I have posted your email unedited as I am sure our members will be interested in reading it all.
I would like to know the serial numbers of any of your Safaris for the register.
Please keep posting your memories of Safaris, I am trying to write a history of the Company and stories like yours can add a lot to my research.
Keep in touch.
Brian Miller