He felt that it should be a fairly friendly event with no horrendous hazards to contend with, so chose two sites, one on the Grand Union canal at Tring and the other very close to the M40 near Oxford.

The site near Oxford was right on the edge of the M40 very close to Shabbington Woods but on the opposite side of the motorway. The intention was to lure competitors into the woods only to find that after having run about a mile the motorway was between them and glory!

Putting up the antenna was more difficult than he imagined as the site was crossed by Supergrid high tension power cables which, as a 1:1 transformer was giving him a good belt from the aerial wire, only micro-amps but at many thousands of volts. Having wrapped his hands with a old carrier bag he managed to get the highest point up, before I could earth the end and avoid further discomfort.

On the day several competitors did indeed get on the wrong side of the motorway and had to use a footbridge about 300 yds away, except Trevor Gage who spotted that there was a pipe under the Motorway to allow Badgers to cross. This pipe was about two feet in diameter but unfortunately he did not spot that the pipe sagged in the middle, concealing about six to eight inches of silt water and s**t. !!!

The creature that emerged from the other end could have come from the Black Lagoon, being covered from head to tail in viscous goo, and despite the noble efforts did not win the event. Such is this hobby of DF’ing

Later Trevor related the story of the pipe. Trevor being fairly bulky, had no thoughts but to get to the transmitter by the shortest route, but the motorway was quite busy, so he decided to wriggle through the pipe. About half way, up to his shoulders in mire, he thought that no-one knew he was there and if he had had a heart attack, then he would have been a gonner. This did not deter him, rather the opposite in fact, as when he emerged he was so fired up not even collision with a 10 tonne truck would have stopped him. (but it would have given the truck driver brown trousers)