(or… How I tried to turn my T2 into a mobile Cathedral)
It happened in Oxford. Very fitting for the start of an ecclesiastical undertaking. My wife Lindsay and I had stopped for a weekend sojourn among the dreaming spires on our way to the Isle of Wight for a VWT2OC summer meet. It was June 2021.
Our recently acquired 1976 Devon Bay Conversion (affectionately known as “the camper”) had let us down twice: in the same place on the M65, trying to get to Orcaber Farm campsite at Settle (highly recommended btw). Brakes seized on all wheels. Turns out it was the servo, which our local champion “The Slambassador” duly replaced. So we were nervous of such a long journey from Liverpool, and split the route in two.
On the second night Lindsay had gone to the shower block and I was up in the roof space making the bed. And then all of a sudden I wasn’t. I was on the floor of the camper with halves of a broken bed in splinters around me. If it hadn’t been for the movable seat/storage cupboard directly underneath, our poor dog Toby would have been flattened. As it was, he stared at me in a mixture of shock and disappointment.
We slept on the rock’n’roll bed for the rest of the trip. Examination of the bed boards revealed that they were made from something similar to a pound shop picture frame stuffed with egg boxes and covered with hardboard. Hardly sufficient to support my ever increasing bulk and that of my not insignificant other. Small children perhaps, or Ken and Barbie, but not big kids. So, I went to our local timber merchant and had a couple of pieces of 18mm plywood cut to size. Not even the elephant in the room would be able to destroy that! And so it remained: strong and reliable, but also plain and wooden, until our first successful trip to Orcaber Farm.
We took the Settle to Carlisle railway, entertained on the way by a group of Dutch tourists who were slightly tipsy but great company. We decided to experience the atmosphere in the Cathedral to full effect by attending a short service with choir. And it was looking up at the awe-inspiring ceiling inside the Cathedral, as we listened to spiritually uplifting song, that I got the idea to paint our bedboards in the same pattern. Deep blue with golden heavenly bodies and red and white adornment. Eighteen months later, the job hadn’t started. Amazon were fresh out of tuits, round or otherwise. It was a project for the future.
And then I turned the telly on one day, happening to catch an episode of “George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces”. George was having a caravan bespoke built by a team of artisans and professionals, and guess what design he was planning for the ceiling? A facsimile of Carlisle cathedral! I had a Victor Meldrew moment, and then I was spurred into action.
There was half a tin of gloss (coincidentally called “Oxford Blue”) left from when I had repainted the front door, and a can of gold spray paint that had been buried for years somewhere in the shed. Armed with rolls of masking tape and some acrylic primer, I set about my grand design. Toby gave discerning looks and barks, and tried to put his own pawprint on proceedings while the paint was wet. Together we got the job done.
I haven’t dared to watch any more episodes of George Clarke. I’m sure his design will be more elaborate, more ornate and very much more expensive, and I’m not going to give him the opportunity to rub my nose in it. But I am very happy with the result, and hope you like it too. I’m thinking of turning the sink into a font next, and maybe the under-bed storage into a crypt. What do you reckon?