This Community

I wanted to say a big thank you.  Thank you to the people who formed this community and the members of it.

Here's a little story...

As a child I had a dream of having the ability of putting my home on my back, maybe something to do with my father being a locum doctor in the Highlands and Islands, we moved every six months – in fact, my birthday overtook my address count when I hit 30!  It turns out that my life partner, Stephie, had a similar dream, something she puts down to a forces childhood and never feeling settled.

We moved to this (Attleborough) part of Norfolk in October 2013 for Steph to be closer to her job, an area I’m not too familiar with but beautiful none the less.  Our local shop is about a mile away and most of the journey is bumpy mud track, indeed cycling is faster than driving.  Half way to the shop there is an orchard, and sat under a great oak by the road was a big green, red and white box on wheels. 

One rainy afternoon just about a year ago, Steph announces she’s going to the shop.  Not that we do everything together, but when I offered to drive her, she gladly accepted provided we could slow down to go past ‘her’ van!  I don’t really know a great deal about 4 wheeled vehicles (despite having owned 4 VW vans!) and so had no idea what it was.  A couple of months passed and we found ourselves taking a detour nearly every journey just to see ‘her’ van, it added two miles to all non-local travel and happened more journey’s than not.

“When we get a van, I want it to look just like that one. With the red and everything…and curtains… and a log burner… we go to Norway and..”, Steph would fantasize. 

We wanted to go and see it, to peer in the windows and look around but we daren’t.  It was someone else’s and they clearly loved it being there as it wasn’t alone, a moggy sits there too, just rusting happily into the earth.  We were happy to just drive by suspiciously slowly every time we drove to the shop, dreaming of the future and wondering what our van, when we eventually get one, will be like.

It took the owners three weeks to say yes to my offer of £500 and a tray of freshly risen and yet to be baked croissants.  I had to exercise every ounce of patience to refrain from telling Steph that I’d even approached them with an offer – I didn’t want her hopes to be dashed should they say no and that was expected.  But they didn’t and Steph was over the moon.  It took me a couple of hours to get it running, which after 5 years of standing under a tree and for someone who’s ‘not a car person’, was alright.  I drove it the ¾ home only discovering that I hadn’t even considered the condition of the brakes when I realised there was none when I approached the only junction on the short countryside lane journey.  Hilariously, as the gear selection was in such a hideous state I couldn’t get the van into second and found it easy for the engine braking to slow me sufficiently.  I had however instinctively looked at the tree at the junction as a stopping method should someone be using the road and I need to stop. 

We got the van home and began to realise that we had ourselves a bargain.  Looking around the van, the brakes were shot, the engine needed some work, a new exhaust, it was full of chairs and spiders, and outside the green moss/liken was one inch thick all down the RHS; scraping it off stained my driveway for months.  It had various electrical issues, dents and body filler all over and wasn’t water-tight.  The chassis and running gear, the size, the look, the colour and the dream were all perfect though and we were smitten.

I set about sorting it with the view to using it over the summer but the pitfalls of owning a vehicle no longer supported by the manufacturer slowed everything down.   For example, it took me 3 months to find the right dust seals for the front brake calipers and £170 in lapsed return times etc. (Anyone want any that don’t quite fit, going cheap?) Only to find out that an exchange set would have taken a week to sort and less money than the seals alone had cost.  But I wanted to do everything myself.  I wanted to know this machine inside and out, as I realise when parts are so hard to come by and you’re trekking to, say Tibet, that when shit happens I will be the best person to sort it.  Getting to know your machine is of the utmost importance, a breakdown card is a close second.

I realise that even though my projected time of getting Buster on the road was greatly underestimated, it wouldn’t have been possible without the members of this community, a community that has no obvious ridiculous hierarchal status system.  This is a place for me (us).

You will not find the full knowledge to run an old LT in any book, it’s actually here! On this forum!

And so, Buster passed his MOT yesterday and I have very nearly completed the conversion, but we feel like we are 'there' with him being OTR. We are elated that we now have the shell for our backs’.  Most of the spiders didn’t move out but what can you do?

To the members here who have helped make our dream come true, a really big thank you.

Peace and love,

Stephie, James and Buster.

Maybe see ya at some festivals, we be stilt walking.