Something that was on my list for last year and which got moved to this year is to visit some of the many folk that I’ve supplied with energy systems, or simply advice, or met along the way, and record their stories, in writing, in pictures and maybe video, with the aim of putting it all together in a book perhaps. So many people that I meet have amazing stories about how they came to be where they are, and have created the most incredible places to live that I would love those to inspire others.
In order to help me get around the country, and to be able to live relatively comfortably while I’m doing so, I thought that a camper van would be a good idea. Then I got to looking at camper vans and well, they are all very similar looking. I’m sure they all do a great job of getting you from A to B, and I love my own white transit for work, but I just thought that there must be some better way to do it.
I’ve always loved looking at the amazing trucks, buses and vans that people who are ‘proper’ van dwellers have. They’re usually creative, always a bit different, and not afraid to do their own thing. So I started looking about and came across the venerable Citroen H Van. The H Van is a fantastic example of form following function. Its almost undesigned, and yet it has become a design icon. It started life way back in 1947, and remained in production, largely unchanged until 1981. That says a lot about the H van. Sadly a lot of them get made into food trucks and so finding one that was a camper wasn’t easy. For some reason a great proportion of the ones in the Netherlands were made into campers and it is from there that ‘my’ H Van comes.
Anyhow after much searching I found this camper in Bristol, far away from home but decided that I would fly to Bristol and all being well, drive it home. I bought an optimistic one way ticket, was picked up from the airport by a very obliging Andy and his partner, and after a brief inspection (isn’t it tiny, I thought) we set off round the streets of Bristol for a test drive. Having survived that, a deal was struck and the realisation dawned that I now had to make my way out of Bristol, all the way up Wales, across the Irish sea and then home from Dublin. A 400 mile baptism of fire. That isn’t an understatement by the way, it was terrifying.
Imagine getting behind the wheel of a vehicle that is not only 50 years old, but left hand drive. Now imagine that when the mirrors are in the right place, you can barely see a thing. When they aren’t – which is at any speed above thirty miles an hour, you can see nothing. It’s a cold day at the end of January, and there is no heating. You soon discover that there aren’t any washers, the horn doesn’t work and that you are sitting mere inches away from the engine. It is noisy, the exhaust, which handily exits below your left foot, is leaking diesel fumes and you can see the road.
To aid in your celebration of having become the newest owner of this fine machine, you discover that whenever you lift off the accelerator pedal, the engine goes into some kind of limp mode and you have to flick the igntion switch off and on again, after which normal service is resumed. So every time you change gear, really. In a busy city centre, or joining a packed motorway it adds a certain frisson to the journey.
So after about ten minutes I am seriously questioning my sanity, and whether I will ever see my family again. Fortunately the weather is dry, and I decide to drive for an hour and stop in Hereford for the night for a rest. Minou and I roar up the motorway (the speedometer stops working so I’ve no idea at what speed) and I collapse in a heap at a Premier Inn.
Once fed I formulate a plan, involving a trip to B&Q for supplies to keep the mirrors where they are supposed to be, so that I have at least an outside chance of avoiding cars beside me. I also buy myself some thick gloves and don an extra layer of clothing to keep the cold out as I hit the early morning traffic.
I decide that the key to survival is to break my journey up and stop often, whereupon I soon realise that there is a benefit to driving an elderly Citroen van, and that is that people want to come and talk about it as soon as you pull up. I have a variety of entertaining encounters with passers by at petrol stations along the way, and mercifully the weather holds. I’m even early for my ferry, which I’ve booked along the way.
As I roll into Holyhead, the weather breaks and I realise that I am travelling ahead of storm Chandra. All subsequent ferries are cancelled because of the increasing winds. I’m so early for the ferry that I end up right at the front of the ferry, with all the cars behind me. I can’t help but pray that Minou will start when we get to the other side.
We arrive in Dublin in the dark, and the storm has caught us up. I now have a two hour drive, in the dark, with no mirrors, no heater, and lights from another age, and my sole aim is to avoid everyone else and make it home alive. Possibly the longest two hour drive in my life, but once again Minou chugs along (I have donned ear protectors by this point) and we make it back before midnight.
I feel like this was almost an initiaition and that having survived it I am now an actual Citroen HY owner.
One Month Later
For a vehicle that cost as much as she did, and who made it 400 miles up busy roads, Minou needed a surprising amount of TLC. I have however managed to cure the mysterious ‘engine cutting out’ quirk, she has a new stainless steel exhaust (thanks JON Exhausts Newry) and everything (and I mean everything) works as it should. We even have a heater and a modicum of soundproofing. I’m curing my PTSD by embarking on gradually longer trips and reminding myself that she is always reliable so far.
But she is a character, and makes people smile (other people mainly) and I am looking forward to some off grid travels over the coming months. Look out for us..
