Last weekend we had a burst water main at Rugby not far from the venue and the night had to be cancelled at very short notice.

It got me thinking about nights we’ve set out to, only to find our plans were dashed for one bizarre reason or another.

Back in the late eighties, we got a train to London Euston and a National Express coach to Leicester for an Oddfellows allnighter. Only to find on arrival the night had been cancelled. A copper told us that with our Southern accents, being in Leicester on a Saturday night when the pubs were chucking out wasn’t wise and we could come to the nick with him and stay in the cells for a while for our own safety. Ended up getting a lift back via Watford Gap Services for a consolation sarn.

There’s that fantastic Jo Wallace tale of being in a car accident en route to Wigan and when the ambulance crew asked “do you want to go to hospital”? She replied “No, I want to go to Wigan”!

Lets hear those stories..

Early 80s , with my mate Rich we set off from Brighton, Sussex to go to Slough , Im pretty sure it was a new Alnighter probably one of Dave Thorleys , anyway we where travelling in my old Bedford work van , overheated twice on the journey up , each time resulting in a break to allow cooling down of radiator, luckily had a container of water in the back , after 5 hrs get to Slough only to find a few hopefuls and the All-Nighter was cancelled.

Set off home got about a third of the way back and this time bang , in the middle of nowhere, no choice but to have a rest , wait for daylight find a telephone box ring the AA , who on arrival takes one look , and calls for a breakdown truck to complete the journey home a round trip of some 16 or so hrs and to rub salt into the wounds the van was written off and scrapped ,too old and too expensive to repair , so I had to buy another .

1 hour ago, Happy Feet said:

Early 80s , with my mate Rich we set off from Brighton, Sussex to go to Slough , Im pretty sure it was a new Alnighter probably one of Dave Thorleys , anyway we where travelling in my old Bedford work van , overheated twice on the journey up , each time resulting in a break to allow cooling down of radiator, luckily had a container of water in the back , after 5 hrs get to Slough only to find a few hopefuls and the All-Nighter was cancelled.

Set off home got about a third of the way back and this time bang , in the middle of nowhere, no choice but to have a rest , wait for daylight find a telephone box ring the AA , who on arrival takes one look , and calls for a breakdown truck to complete the journey home a round trip of some 16 or so hrs and to rub salt into the wounds the van was written off and scrapped ,too old and too expensive to repair , so I had to buy another .

Oh gawd, things we do for soul eh?

Father in law was on his way to a nighter in Manchester, when his timing belt broke and munched the whole engine.

Manchester ritz  (all nighter ) .  1982/83  i think .  Austin 1100.   myself and Neil Olive set off,  only to break down on the M62 near huddersfield.    Cops gave us 30 minutes to get recovered, or they would do it. so we pushed it off at the nearby junction and parked up in a gateway.  where i kipped down on the back seat, with a wool blanket, leaving Neil to freeze in the front ...    luckily i had a CB radio (true story),  where by a local wannabe mechanic came along in the morning and fixed the distributor, which got us on our way home.  daft thing is,  another mate, Biz,  refused to get in the car with us, coz he said the motor looked a bit dodgy,  how right he was. ...  Also remember going to Alfreton,  only to find we were a week late. 

Edited April 21, 20241 yr by Ian Parker

6 hours ago, Simsy said:

Last weekend we had a burst water main at Rugby not far from the venue and the night had to be cancelled at very short notice.

It got me thinking about nights we’ve set out to, only to find our plans were dashed for one bizarre reason or another.

Back in the late eighties, we got a train to London Euston and a National Express coach to Leicester for an Oddfellows allnighter. Only to find on arrival the night had been cancelled. A copper told us that with our Southern accents, being in Leicester on a Saturday night when the pubs were chucking out wasn’t wise and we could come to the nick with him and stay in the cells for a while for our own safety. Ended up getting a lift back via Watford Gap Services for a consolation sarn.

There’s that fantastic Jo Wallace tale of being in a car accident en route to Wigan and when the ambulance crew asked “do you want to go to hospital”? She replied “No, I want to go to Wigan”!

Lets hear those stories..

Blimey you make Leicester sound like South Central la. We're very friendly really 😁

21 minutes ago, Leicester Boy said:

Blimey you make Leicester sound like South Central la. We're very friendly really 😁

Well quite! I’m in my late 50’s and have lived in Rugby for the last ten years and have visited Leicester many times. So I hear you all the way. 👍

Back then though a wet behind the ears soft Southern teenager had no reason to doubt the word of the local plod!

My first owned vehicle, was as I recall a mini-van around 1975, having failed my first driving test, an apprentice who worked with me at the time in British Steel, drove my van Wigan Bound, that gave up on us on the M6 North, and was towed to the services, where we all spent the night sleeping uncomfortabally until hitching a lift back to South Wales the following day! Van recovered and towed back by his local Milkman, whereby I purchased a replacement 2nd hand engine, to add to the £108 I'd paid for the van at the outset....The furthest it travelled after that was Yate....a few times before it was sold to the local technical college, for whatever....for £20 as an MOT failure......

Was going to Shotts with Sedge, Carla & Pablo. Set out from Gilly's, where Sedge left his car. We had an accident in Stoke and had my car towed back to Gilly's. Most normal people would have called it a night but not us. Finally got to Shotts about 5 in the morning. The next day had my towed back to Leighton Buzzard with me pretending to be Sedge as it was his AA card. When we finally got home I had to quickly explain the situation to my Dad so he didn't give the game away to the AA Driver!!

Went to the Blue Orchid near Derby in Les Cokell's van. Les insisted we all took our 'keep awake additives' before we got there. It was bloody closed. Spent the night in a motorway service station being stared at by the motorway police. Enough to give you the horrors😁.

Still, they were happy days.

3 hours ago, Julianb said:

Went to the Blue Orchid near Derby in Les Cokell's van. Les insisted we all took our 'keep awake additives' before we got there. It was bloody closed. Spent the night in a motorway service station being stared at by the motorway police. Enough to give you the horrors😁.

Still, they were happy days.

I wouldn't have found it funny at the time but I can't help laughing now!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Edited April 22, 20241 yr by Kathryn Magson

Dunhelm House in Durham great venue for alldayers and then Alex Lowes put on an allnighter in 1977 which went really well and another was scheduled . The night came and the local Council pulled the plug at literally the last minute . I remember standing on the steps with Alex turning folks away including a bus load from Scotland who then had to go on to Wigan and I assume the folks on board like an earlier post had already digested their allnighter supplies.