Bill Bowman the DBG's Roving International Ambassador

"The Adventures of the Roving Ambassador"

Steve Carrington - Bristol, UK - tells about the Split Screen Van Club

Bill Bowman attends the event, including his Neato article!

The Aftermath...

Last weekend {9^th & 10^th of Oct, '99}, the Split Screen Van Club here in the UK organized the 2^nd annual London to Brighton run. Open to all air-cooled VWs, there is a Saturday morning cruise (750+ vehicles left the start at Crystal Palace to fight their way through the London traffic), and then all the vehicles are parked up in Type order on the seafront at Brighton - a fabulous sight. Over 1000 VWs were lined up together, including about 140 split screen buses. There is trade and entertainment organised throughout the day. All VWs on the seafront are entrants in a huge show and shine display. A very different event to the usual shows. The SSVC also arrange camping and entertainment in the evening at Brighton Racecourse (bands, DJs and a large bar!)

Back to the plot......it's Saturday evening after the seafront has been cleared (about 9pm), and I'm on the gate at Brighton Racecourse welcoming the campers. It's bl**dy cold, but myself and a few other SSVC stalwarts are coming to the end of our shift and looking forward to a relaxing, end-of-day drink in the bar...... when a taxi rolls up to the gate.

Passenger side window comes down and a distinctly American accent says: "Hey....is there a bus event in town?" I peer closer into the darkness.......and it's Bill Bowman!!!! (NEATO president and fellow VintageBus listee) I almost fell over with shock - I couldn't get my head round this!! "Just thought I'd fly in to check out your event" he said!

I'd met Bill earlier in the year when he toured round the UK and Europe (in his '55 sunroof deluxe Beetle), finishing up at Bad Camberg, as part of the Return to the Fatherland Tour. The SSVC helped the Tour out with some arrangements and hosted them for an evening whilst they were in the UK. A few SSVC members (myself included) and their buses then had the privilege of joining the RTTF Tour on their trek through Holland, Belgium and Germany (a truly fantastic experience).

Anyway, it turns out that Bill had earned a stopover due to the long haul flight he was working (Bill is a flight attendant with TWA). His first choice stopover was London - he said he never usually gets these flights .......but this time he did. TWA put their London stopovers up in a hotel, but not in London.......in Brighton! Bill arrived early afternoon but was tired and grabbed a few hours sleep in his room. He got up early evening and went for a walk...... saw a few buses about the place and decided that there must be something going on....... He waved down a few bay window buses, but from the looks he got, he reckoned that the drivers thought they were going to be 'car-jacked'! He finally got a bus to stop - and found out about what had happened that afternoon on the seafront! He asked if anyone would still be about, and was told that alot of people were camping at the Racecourse. He asked if any of the Split Screen Van Club would be about and on learning that they'd organised the event, he figured that he would probably bump into someone he knew up there.

Bill jumped into a taxi a little later after grabbing some food..... and arrived at the gate while myself and a couple of other SSVC members he knew from the RTTF Tour were on duty....... If we couldn't believe it, then Bill himself was a little amazed! He was then totally astounded as we took him round the site and into the bar - a huge number of the people he met here on the RTTF Tour were about. It wasn't only UK people though - also there for the event were Jochen Brauer and his family (Jochen is the president of Bulli Kartei - the German club for pre-'67 Type 2s) and Hans Sprenkels and Pim van Loon of the National VW Club of Holland, who had also helped out big time while the RTTF Tour was in Europe. Now Bill really couldn't believe this was happening!! What was it someone said......."Now I know there's a God, and he drives a split-screen van!"

We retired to the bar all night, and just talked about the summer trip and the London-Brighton event over several beers. Unreal.

The one time in the year that Bill gets a London stopover with his job......and it's right in the middle of this event! Bill had no idea at all that the Brighton event was on, which was a bit of a shame since he could have made it to the seafront in the afternoon. He definitely got the idea of things though when we walked round the campsite at the Racecourse - he was impressed by the numbers and vehicles there (there were more than 250 vehicles, mostly Type 2s, set up for the night). We managed to get him some event memorabilia before waving him off in a taxi so he could get a little sleep before working the return flight. Bill said that just seeing the disbelief in my face when he turned up at the gate in a taxi made the whole trip. I still can't get over it.....
What an unbelievable way to end a very successful day.
Steve Carrington - Bristol, UK - '56 Westy

10/17/99
There were at least 250 Type 2's at the racetrack camping, and God knows how many more I missed at the Show 'n Shine on the beach front boardwalk that day! I ran into all my SSVC and Bulli Kartei buddies in one night of Type 2 fun. What awesome luck I had. I'll never get over the coincidence!!!

Below is a copy of my impressions of the affair written for an the upcoming NEATO "Old Bus Review". Enjoy!
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As a flight attendant with TWA based in St. Louis, Missouri, I get to travel all over the USA and occasionally to Europe for a living. Sometimes I'm able to work a flight to a city and while on a "layover" there, I occasionly get to visit with VW friends. Very unexpectedly, that became the case on October 8th, 1999 when I was assigned to work a nonstop flight from St. Louis to London, England. TWA puts it's crews up in a beachfront hotel in the seaside resort of Brighton, straight south of London. I had planned a simple, quiet 29 hour layover with a nice dinner out on the town by myself. But through a bizarre set of coincidences, I had a surprisingly exciting layover that I just have to tell you about!

Briefly, after flying all night long for almost eight hours and landing at Gatwick Airport at 9:30am, the tired crew is picked up by a big motorcoach for the 45 min ride south to Brighton. I was at a window seat checking out the British countryside, while most of the crew were snoring. Then way up ahead I spotted the rear of a VW Bus in the distance. Our driver gained on him and passed while I was excitedly checking out this very nice, mild custom Splitty. A few miles later, we passed a slightly modified Bubble-window Bus and then another, all headed southbound towards Brighton.

By now I had been up for almost 20 hours and I was quite tired, but these "sightings" woke me up! I was beginning to wonder if there was a British Bus event or campout somewhere south of London.
Our motorcoach arrived in Brighton and we checked-in to the hotel, and I asked the hotel concierge if he knews if there was a VW event in town. He didn't know of any, so being that I was very tired, I hit the bed at about noon for a good 4-5 hour nap. I was up and out on the streets of Brighton at 5:30pm on a Saturday evening to go out and have a nice Italian meal at a favorite restaurant. I started to notice a few older air-cooled Beetles and several nice Bubble-window Busses in town. While one Camper was stopped at a traffic light, I ran out into the street and knocked on the guys passenger window. I about scared the crap out of the poor guy, as he probably thought he was getting "carjacked". I asked him through the window if there was a VW event in town that day. I was told that indeed there was but that it had just ended. As the light was about to turn green, I said that it was a shame that I had missed it. Before driving off, he quickly told me that a bunch of the Busses were camping and partying near town.

That news got me excited! Back in June of 1999, I got to spent a lot of quality time with many members of the Split Screen Van Club of Great Britain while driving my '55 Deluxe Sunroof Beetle through Europe on the Der Kafer Fahrer Club's "Return to the Fatherland Tour '99". I figured that a few of those friends might be in town for this event. First I had to catch some dinner, and then find out where they were camping, and then figure out how to get out there. As I approached my restaurant, I questioned yet another Bus owner parked nearby who filled me in on all the details.

As it turned out, by sheer luck I just happened to be on a layover in Brighton on the very day that the SSVC was hosting their second annual "Brighton Breeze - the London to Brighton Air-cooled Rally". The SSVC organizes a HUGE air-cooled caravan from the center of London down to the beach in Brighton, with a HUGE car show / VW only display on the seaside Boardwalk. Last year at their first event over 700 VW's participated! At this second running of the event, I am told they had over 1,100 VW's registered!!! Boy was I "pissed off" that I had taken a nap and essentially missed the entire show! I was then told that hundreds of Vans and a few other VW's were camping out at the nearby Brighton Racecourse (horserace track) for the night! There was a pub/lounge and three bands scheduled to play long into the evening. Alright! This was getting better and better!

After a great, leisurely Italian dinner, I caught a cab which pulled up to the racecourse gates at about 8pm. And there in the dark, manning the gates were several great friends from the SSVC. So as I jumped out of the taxi, and with my decidedly American accent I asked if there were any VW's around here to check out? Well, you should have seen the stunned looks on the faces of Steve Carrington, Jane Tothill, Pim van Loon and a few others as they suddenly recognized me! None of us could get over the incredible series of coincidences that allowed me to show up at their event for the evening all the way from the USA.

We entered the grounds and now I was stunned to see a half mile long strip of land packed with at least 250, possibly 300 Type 2's all set up for camping. As the first band was setting up in the nearby Pub, we visited the campsites and Busses of some of our other friends from our travels this past summer. Among them were "Bulli Kartei" Club President Jochen Brauer, family and friends from Germany, Hans Sprenkels and Pim van Loon and friends from Holland, and many SSVC members. Besides Steve and Jane, I got to spend some time visiting with Jon Thompson, Steve Goouge and Sharon O'Donnell, Peter and Maria Royall, Ricki and Ben. We all became great friends when these particular SSVC members provided assistance to the DKF Tour members on our arrival in England in June, and then joined us in their early Busses for eleven days of touring through Europe! Throughout the evening at the pub, I got reaquainted with many of the Bus folks who came to meet the Tour as it passed through their countries. The bands were
great, the pints flowed long into the evening, and we had a wonderful time together.

At around midnight, we took a long stroll through the campground to check out all the European variations of Campers, Busses and tents. Then after our goodbyes, I regretfully hopped into a taxi for the ride back to my hotel room. By this point, I was happily exhausted and enjoyed a well deserved full night of sleep before working my nonstop TWA flight back to St. Louis at 11am the next morning.
I can't begin to figure the odds against everything falling together like it did to create such a fun layover in England with great friends and all those awesome VW Busses. If I'd have been assigned that London trip on any of the other 364 days of the year, none of this would have ever happened.

Go figure! That has to rank as one of the best layovers I've had in over 24 years of flying! Thanks to TWA and the SSVC for an "surprisingly" incredible evening with great Type 2 friends.
Bill Bowman
NEATO President - DBG

11/26/99
Hi all,
Do you remember that "Trip report" I wrote a while back about the TWA trip I worked to London (Brighton) where by extreme coincidence I got to hang out with all those European Busses and enthusiast while on my layover? Well, a British friend of Tom Janisewski's and mine sent it as an "letter to the editor" to a famous British VW magazine, "VW Motoring". They happen to award their favorite letter of the month, called the "Star Letter", prime positioning and and a one hundred British Pound cash award! Pete just let me know that my story was selected as the "Star Letter" in their last issue of the millenium! I promised, and will follow through, to treat Pete and myself to a nice dinner and adult British malted beverages on my next London trip, whenever that may be. I've forwarded his announcement.
Bill Bowman
-------------Forwarded Message-----------------
INTERNET:vwpete@cwcom.net
To: Bill & Kathryn Bowman, BussesBytheArch
Date: 11/25/99 4:45 PM
RE: You're a STAR!
Hi Bill!
I have some very good news! Your piece about Brighton has made THE STAR LETTER in the December issue of VW Motoring magazine! Congratulations dude! Wow.. the last Star Letter of this millennium too, haha! This not only means your letter gets read by folks the length and breadth of this fair land, but you also get to win the equivalent of $160 (give or take a buck!). Too cool!!!
Of course, you know what this all means?! Yup, you book the restaurant and I'll see you there my napkin in one hand and my Bad Camberg photo album in the other!

I'll have a chat with editor Neil Birkitt tomorrow (Friday) and see if he'll mail you a copy of the mag. Unfortunately, the pictures sent by Sharon arrived too late for the deadline, so no photo's. Ah well, there's always next time!
Very best regards, and once again, many congrat's! Don't forget to let me know when your next layover in jolly old England is and we'll make the necessary culinary arrangements!

Later mate,
Pete