The aerial was led from the holly bush along the canal bank until it could be got across to the tow path side unseen, then back along the tow path, down to the other end of the stream tunnel, (with a branch up the tunnel of course) and on to cross back over the canal into the derelict brick works area. This meant that when competitors came along the tow path they got into a box of wire with bearings in front of them behind , to both sides and down (into the tunnel below them). Add to this a 15’ length of bright ‘glow in the dark’ orange wire just above the tow path.

Whilst putting up the wire we were bugged by yobs on motor bikes roaring up and down the tow path. (more later), and on completion of the wire erection, it was back to the car to go and get some tea before the event started. But no keys. Had they been lost in the undergrowth, no sign of them, until a Blu cigarette lighter was seen bobbing in a pool in the stream. Had we lost the keys and lighter up the tunnel, after four of us searched the tunnel time and again, one of us went just that bit further, beyond the end of the wire and found the offending keys glinting under the water (yes we do get some clean water around Manchester).

When the crew returned to the site, the yobs were still being a menace, so Tim with peaked cap on, 2m handheld in one hand and a 45w halogen spot light in the other, stepped out in the dark in front of them , shone the light in their eyes and said in his most official like voice, ‘ What are you lot up too, no licences , no Helmets, you had better Bu**er off home now’ . That was the last we saw or heard of them that night.

Latter, much latter, when the Chris’s had hidden, Tim Kay G7GFW and Chris Plummers younger son Colin, took a DF set and went to the start to get credibility for what they were to do later, and took bearings with the other competitors (even though they knew exactly where the site was). They then legged it back to the site and waited for some others to turn up. Not long after the teams started to arrive on site. Geoff Foster and Graham Taylor ‘found’ some wire and followed it , up the tunnel, and both ways to the canal, but not across it. Some hour and a half later when asked politely by other teams if the had found any wire? Their reply (heard fully by the hidden Chris’s) was ‘Which particular 100m are you interested in?’ (there was about 600m of wire set in the trees and tunnel).

At about this time Tim and Colin decided to play their part. Tim shouted ‘ Right-O Nigel I’ve found him Lets go’ This of course was heard by all present, and with no thought for who the hell Nigel was (for we know of no competitor of that name) all ran towards Tim, who then ran for his car as if to drive off. When he reached his car down near the river, who should be arriving but Trevor Gage, so Tim ‘had to’ leap into his car and drive off. Chaos ensued for a while yet, on the wrong side of the canal.

Tim and Colin then left their car and DF set at a remote canal bridge and approached the site as lovers hand in hand from the opposite direction along the tow path. When they reached the site area, with many teams beating up the canal bank down to the river, Tim says in a loud voice ’Blimy, you can't come out for a quiet f**k without someone bu*****ing about'’ Colin them sat on the bank and was assaulted by Trevor, lifting him by the collar shouting ‘Matthew, where’s your Dad?....’ ‘ Hang on you’re not Matthew’ promptly putting him down again. (No it wasn’t Matthew who Trevor knew, it was his younger brother, who is just as evil)

Still by this time noone had found the transmitter. To be fair the tunnel end on the TX side of the canal was blocked with local rubbish, eg. Washing machines...

Just then George Whenham and crew appeared from the back of the site across the, then used, railway line. George went off down the side of the holly bush down the slippery mossy slope, whilst his crew was about to relieve himself onto the hide in the holly (Zipppp....). The Chris’s were saved from a drenching by a cry from George as he fell headlong in brambles and fence wire at the bottom of the slope. It seemed hours later that they returned and found us. Needless to say we were not the most popular at the supper afterwards.

Moral of the Story ‘Don’t go near the Canal Neddy’

As a post script, this was not the only event of note that night. One of the other TX crews sited on Tandle Hill, had their car broken into just as they were returning to it, and ended up with a car chase down the M62/M61motorways with radio reports to the local police ending up with arrests at a service station in the early hours of the Sunday morning.

It was a bad weekend in total , as Chris Plummer had had his car damaged by an attempted car theft on the Friday night at the pub after the club meeting which ended up with both front doors and the locked being replaced. But Chris had had to use the car that night and parked it down by the river, only to discover latter that this was an area used by local yobbos to dump cars before they stripped them. Tim had to explain why the car was there to the local constabulary, all this in the middle of the contest. Chris latter had his reverse gull winged doors on his Cavalier SRi, replaced at a cost of over £1,000 to his insurance company.