Obsession, Hallucination & Happiness

In an extract from his new book on the history of the Land’s End to John o’ Groats record, Paul Jones tells the story of Pauline Strong’s 1990 record ride

- Paul Jones

They headed down and waited a day for the weather. The local press had come out and there was a minor frisson of excitement, dispelled slightly by a very low-key departure. “I just rolled out to ride for two days,” soon-to-be End to End record holder Pauline Strong recalls.

Cornwall was a static line of holiday traffic in and out of the county. Support cars were stuck in unending queues. It left Strong riding up the outside of a 13mile line of cars, fearful of car doors, and having to deal with what seems like the customary End to End snarl-up between Bridgwater and Bristol. She saw local legend Gerry McGarr out with a bugle. “He had signs up, a big bell, and was stood on the island with his little kids making a right old rumpus – they’re now 30,” she recalls. Gerry was there again in 2018, without the 30-year-old kids but with his bugle, watching Michael Broadwith roll past on his record ride.

After a straightforward first 12 hours, things began to drift away on a haze of English folk madness. A stop for directions led to an attempted bike theft; then came a breathless chase by wild farm dogs near Knutsford. Finally, they ended up in the middle of an acid house convoy searching for a free party. It’s part performance art, part Wicker Man, maybe an excerpt from a Jeremy Deller film: two different folk traditions somehow inserted into each other’s social history, stories to be told and handed down. I wonder where those young people are now, or if they’ll read this book and recall the memories – headed to Shelley’s Laserdome in Stoke for a counter-culture all-nighter, pre-Criminal Justice Act, driving round in circles for hours. Two competing quest narratives, both escapist.

Surrealism and suffering