Memories

Following on from my comment in my last email about the importance of leaving time to view a bit of TV, I tuned in today to watch the Formula One Grand Prix at Monte Carlo. I also kept an eye on the World Super-bike race held at Kyalami.
 
I don’t suppose you could have got a wider comparison between the two venues.
Monte Carlo the established capital of the old money, massive yachts, elegant hotels beautiful women, powerful men, the stars of our acquisitive world.
 
Kyalami set in the dusty open country of the East Rand, the buildings typically South African, a mixture of terracotta and plaster, ordinary men and women supping their beer and briaing their meat on the open fires
 
My early remembrance of Monte Carlo was as a 16 year old cycling down from my home in Yorkshire, through Northern France, through the Midi and finally zig -zagging up the final miles of the Maritime Alps, to view, at last, the Mediterranean. 
Below lay La Napoule and in the distance Cannes. My friend and I rode the twisting decent into La Napoule where we set up our tent and unloaded the massively overloaded panniers with which we had toiled the hot miles down the centre of France.
With bikes now so light we had difficulty not falling off we set off to ride around the shore line to Canne and on to Monte Carlo and into Italy.
 
I remember in Monte Carlo being fascinated watching a huge Mac truck, very slowly pulling up a steep hill with the driver, in his sweat stained singlet, walking alongside the truck and occasionally jumping up to adjust the steering wheel to stay on course.
 
Bureaucracy, Health and Safety and all the do-gooders who tell us what is best would have wet themselves but in those days the individual was valued and the picture has stayed with me. 
 
There are more billionaires in Monte Carlo than any where else and one is struck by the shear opulence, the huge yachts, lined up like taxies, the men and women climbing in and out of their Bentleys. 
 
This all seemed remote from Kyalami and my memories of the driving to see friends and family living around there.
I had been to one of the F1 events way back in the days of Anglo American Life. Wined and dined with a good view of the race, the only tricky part was negotiating my way home through the traffic clogged roads having generously exceeded the liquor limit !!
 
I remember a thatched pub which stood on the road at the top side of the track. It was pretty basic with, shall we call them, characters noisily enjoying themselves. Guns were occasionally flashed as tempers got out of hand but it was all part of the South African tapestry in the 70s / 80s.
 
Today’s race was crowded with happy noisy supporters and the British TV commentators were very supportive of Kyalami as a race venue which I understand is under threat by the withdrawal of Provincial funds.