The Jampot Experience (2015)

I first became a member of the AJS and Matchless Owners Club in 1994, being introduced to the East London and Essex Section soon after aquiring my Matchless G5 lightweight. I had never previously owned, or even ridden, any AJS/Matchless model before and hadn’t set out to own one then. It just so happened that I had a Land Rover which I no longer needed (for that read - could no longer afford either the petrol bills or the maintenance costs) and the owner of the Matchless was keen to become its next owner. He wondered if I might have been reluctant to swap when I knew that it was a lightweight model with a complete heavyweight front end and hand painted, but although I was well aware that they were not exactly well thought of by those who were supposed to know about these things it rode well enough and I was not put off. All these years later I am still enjoying it and fail to understand why some seem to dislike them so much. At the time I joined my local section I was introduced to it by a local member and not because I had previously joined the main club. I was at that time the only member of it to currently own any lightweight so I automatically inherited the title of “The lightweight man” for anyone who wanted, in future, to know about the bikes, even though at the time I had yet to even lay a spanner on it (and except for the gearbox and clutch plus routine maintenance, still haven’t).

Around summertime in 1995 there was mention in the section of something called a Jampot Rally. I hadn’t had any real contact with the main club at that time, didn’t really know what it entailed and wasn’t really interested, but in 1996 it was going to be at Mersea Island and that was in easy riding distance for me for a day visit. It had been quite a while since I had been to any camping rallies, except for an occasional annual event with another club where I was on the committee and I wasn’t exactly keen to get into them again. However that year we were treated to tents which had already been set up at the site from some previous event, so I ended up staying for the whole rally after all, having a huge tent all to myself with room to park my bike in it as well. Being local to our section there were quite a few of our members attending that year.

Being used to various club rallies of long ago, usually held in a field behind a pub, I was surprised to see not only the size of a Jampot rally, but the amount of motorhomes and caravans on site as well as the numbers of children in attendance. It was all far bigger than I had anticipated. The weather was good to us that year and it was a good rally. The sun also shone for the main run of the rally and I went out with all the others but found that I didn’t really enjoy it. I have always preferred riding on my own or with just one other person. I had ridden to and from the event by myself and enjoyed both rides, but going around a set course in company with between one and two hundred other bikes just filled me with trepidation and I did not enjoy that experience at all. So although generally enjoying the event I didn’t bother to attend another Jampot Rally for further eight years as I didn’t intend to do the runs and didn’t really fancy the idea of going back to sleeping in a tent for more than just one night either. So although other section members set off each year for the Jampot with enthusiasm I was not persuaded.

However in 2004 our section hosted that year’s Jampot Rally at Brentwood and with the local authority insisting that the organisers were “on site” for 24 hours I got my tent out for the whole rally, despite only living within a mile or so of the rally site. It wasn’t the most comfortable four nights I have ever spent but I had to admit that despite it all being a great deal of work for the section I thoroughly enjoyed the whole rally – and without being on any of the runs other than for marshalling duties when there was a shortage of marshalls for the Sunday run. I suppose that being part of the organising section I learned a lot more of what the rally was all about and got more involved in it all than I had back in 1996 and decided for myself that I would henceforth make the Jampot Rally a regular annual fixture. Up till then I had for many years only used my tent for the one night only rallies of the other club I belonged to and felt (literally) that one night was plenty. But I had survived a whole four nights this time, so I used my tent for the next two Jampot Rallies, which were in Hampshire and Yorkshire, carrying everything I needed on the back of my solo bike. Unfortunately the amount of “stuff” I need (want) to take with me for a comfortable (comparative term) three or four night camp these days seems to be vastly more than used to be the case when I was a mere teenager, even despite not having to take any cooking items with me for the Jampot – and I still wasn’t very comfortable. But I enjoyed the rallies.

Enjoyment or not I had decided that camping was just not for me any more and the following year I decided to rent one of the caravans that our section leader Roy had organised for the Suffolk Jampot and so my wife Pam, who has never wanted to attend a rally or go camping, decided to accompany me as well. In this case we took our sidecar outfit and we had no trouble packing everything on board with that. We both enjoyed the rally and so that is the way we have attended all the rallies from then on, travelling to and from the rally on our sidecar outfit and either having a caravan “on site” or staying in booked accommodation nearby. The two exceptions being for the Cornwall event where our section was once more running the rally and we booked accommodation for a two week holiday which had the rally in the middle weekend, and the Bishops Auckland event where our sidecar outfit was out of commission at the time and we took our car with a solo bike on a trailer, for exploring the area.

It’s true that the weather has not always been favourable for Jampot rallies, but even that gives us something to reminisce and have a laugh about at subsequent events when everyone gets together again. Until she started going to Jampot rallies Pam had never really had much of an involvement with the Club, but now we treat the rally as a holiday in its own right, meeting up with regulars at each event and it’s not just the people either. When running the Cornwall event we had a “dog’s identity scheme” where we had photos of each dog attending (a legacy from our Brentwood event where we had a dog on site for the whole rally that eventually turned out to not be owned by any of our rallygoers but which caused quite a few problems for us). One of them was a young husky named Storm and Pam met him while working in the control tent. She looks out for him now at each year’s rally and we watch him going out for the runs each year in his own sidecar.

I was quite keen on club rallies when I was young, although I wasn’t ever tempted by the more extreme cold weather endurance type such as the Elephant rally in Germany, or even the Dragon Rally in Wales, but all that finished when I got married in 1972. At the events I attended conditions were always primitive to say the least and you also had to take all the food and cooking means you needed with you or starve whenever the usual nearby pub was shut. Until I attended that Jampot rally in 1996 I never realised just how much things had changed since then. It’s true that they are no longer like they were in the past, but then I can no longer pretend that I am the same age as I was then, or feel the same way about things such as cooking my own meals with whatever I had remembered to bring or found room to pack. I enjoy things just as they are now and so does Pam (who would never have attended one of those 1960s events) and the same spirit of camaraderie is still there amongst those at today’s rallies, which is what matters the most. Apart from our section life the Jampot is our main and most enjoyable contact with other club members and if you haven’t been to one then you ought to give it a try. I am sure that you would not be disappointed.

East London & Essex members at the 2013 Jampot Rally

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