Sure the North Pole is abstract and distant but you know where it is and also that you can’t go there any more you can the moon. But Ulaanbaatar is just 10,000 kilometers away and if you felt a little restless on your way home from the supermarket, your old family car tired of the same old route and desperate for adventure, there’s probably a lot less than you think stopping you driving there yourself. That, for me, is what the Mongol Rally is about and what my book is about.

And people love the idea – the romance and the accessibility of it. I visited my former Primary School before I left to talk about the trip I was planning.  The children responded with reams of drawings, which all possessed the same otherworldly quality; they didn’t know where I was heading either. All I had been able to tell them was East, deserts and mountains.

The book is true to that dream and it brings back for you some of the magic of its origins, the moments of discovery and also the trials and the disappointments too. It has received excellent reviews from readers, male and female aged 15-77. I also am most proud to say it has also proved of great interest to reluctant readers, which I myself once was. Please enjoy the preview, your comments are of interest.

Rising/Falling – Always  Hoping -can be bought online at Amazon.co.uk, - ordered by your local bookshop  for just £8.74 (the price the team’s car was auctioned for at the end of the rally) Just note the ISBN:9780956196613 - or bought direct from the suppliers @ £10.99 (£8.74 plus £2.25 p&p) Address Cheques to Craig Chamberlain, Glovers Cottage, Lazonby, Penrith, CA10 1AJ

The Mongol Rally is not about being organised and on time. It is not about being polite and staying in the most expensive hotels. It is about buying the worst car you can, eating what you find and sleeping rough. That and making the best of the worst the world can throw at you.

Jonno, my team mate, and I like to think our journey was conducted true to this spirit and I hope if you have a Mongol Rally story of your own that it was too.

A native Bradfordian, proud of his textile heritage, you could be sure to find Jonno wearing at least one piece of tweed or knitwear, often of the ‘dirty green’ or ‘mucky orange’ variety he so loved. He also wore a distinctive ginger beard which set him apart, even in Sheffield.

Jonno had already registered our team name, ‘Ey Up Genghis’, which was a little too Yorkshire for my liking. I tended to prefer ‘Genghis Khan…eh?’ but it was not a sticking point and I liked the sentiment.

Time was already tight when I got involved so I had to be sharp getting myself sorted out. We inevitably left visa applications to the night before the deadline but managed to bully and coax each other through the sizable stack, guessing our dates of arrival and fabricating hotel reservations. A few packets of biscuits later and, with the sun threatening to rise, we finally signed the last form.

After this, all we needed was a vehicle. Jonno soon found a well priced Citroën 2CV on ebay. With a new chassis and recent engine rebuild it was the perfect car. By coincidence its M.O.T. expired on the 21st July, the very day the car was to leave British territory and begin its swan song journey to the distant steppe of Outer Mongolia.

It was clearly fated so we snapped it up and quickly got very comfortable with our new car. Jonno decided we should name it and fancied Charlie. Having not had any say in our team name I was happy to veto this,

“You can’t call a beautiful, curvy French girl Charlie. She’s going to have to be Amélie or something.”

And it stuck, Amélie she would remain. On one outing we took her to show the pupils of my former primary school, ‘Lazonby C of E’. We had an entertaining afternoon talking the students through where we were planning to drive. The fact that we had very little idea ourselves did not get in the way and we got some excellent illustrations from the group. Stories of camels, distant mountains and people shooting deadly arrows from galloping horses seemed to spark the youngsters’ imaginations. It felt good to be giving the students something a bit out of the ordinary to be thinking about. As I had more often than not found school a bore, I hoped our visit might break the monotony and give the children something to remember.

Alarmingly close to the launch, we realised we were missing an essential document, the V5, proving ownership of our vehicle and its key components. It would probably be impossible to leave the EU without the document and it would definitely be impossible to import the car into Mongolia. To make matters worse the chassis number did not match the records and required an inspection.

Everyone at the DVLA assured us they could not possibly complete the paperwork in less than five months. We only had a week to go by this stage.

In a telephone marathon Jonno negotiated a plan. We could jump a queue, get the chassis inspected the following week and then be issued with a temporary V5. At the appointed time I was given a pack of printout directions from Route Planner and told to head for Doncaster to meet the inspector.

Due to a navigational error, by the time I arrived in Doncaster I had missed our appointment. There was camping equipment in the car so I emotionally reassured Jonno that I would stay put for as long as it took, feeling too ashamed to return to Sheffield without our papers.

There was no need. Simon, the man Jonno had contacted, could not have been more understanding and explained that he worked quickly and could find the time. Even so, he had to forgo his lunch break.

Simon was particularly interested in our story as he had worked in Kazakhstan, maintaining technologically advanced farm equipment that the Kazakhs had been supplied through a development initiative. He explained that it had been a constant and futile battle to keep the new machines working. In a nation of proud metalworkers and bodgers alike the local mechanics, used to keeping the crude but indestructible Soviet machinery plodding along, refused to let him do his job properly, withholding parts or insisting on fabricating parts from unsuitable materials. Admittedly, financial reasons must have been a major factor and the machines may never have been suited to the climate nor justified by any increase in productivity. Nevertheless, several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment was quickly ruined, dismantled and its parts arranged in the sand, as if by some giant bird of prey, to bake in the sun.

With his best wishes Simon sent me back to Sheffield with our first crucial hurdle negotiated. Amélie had passed the inspection and the chassis number had been updated. The document Simon gave us would have to be delivered to another contact at the DVLA and, God willing, he would be able to supply us a temporary V5 within the week.

Rising/Falling – Always Hoping -can be bought online at Amazon.co.uk, - ordered by your local bookshop for just £8.74 (the price the team’s car was auctioned for at the end of the rally) Just note the ISBN:9780956196613 - or bought direct from the suppliers @ £10.99 (£8.74 plus £2.25 p&p) Address Cheques to Craig Chamberlain, Glovers Cottage, Lazonby, Penrith, CA10 1AJ

“Jonn‘o’? Where does the ‘O’ come from? John O’Neil? John Oh be-good?”

Matt knew how to play the fool but also had a sharper side. However, he enters this story due his 2CV ownership and not on the account of his wit. If it was not the 2CV that had triggered Matt’s eccentricity it had certainly done nothing to cramp his style. He was wearing a sturdy pair of leather boots, some oily cords and an oversized woolly jumper, his long blond hair tied back and his nose smeared black with oil. Matt had his own ideas about most things, often departing wildly from the established. It was when his subversive mind was focussed on something as benign as a sandwich filling that his genius would shine to its fullest. Until I did so, I had never imagined witnessing, in all my flights of fancy, someone willingly sitting down to a stuffing, baked bean and tuna roll.

We had met while I was racing across town to catch a shop before closing time. I’d shot past him as he was pulling out of a junction, roof down with bits of fire wood poking out skyward. He pulled out sharply behind me and the characteristic antennae-like lights of his 2CV blinked playfully at me through my rear view mirror. Torn between getting to the shop in time and being sociable I drove on. He followed me through a few traffic lights and a junction before I gave in and mounted the nearest curb. I held out my hand and introduced myself. We quickly got onto my participation in the Mongol Rally at which point he confidently stated,

“You couldn’t have chosen a better car. My 2CV has just come back from Africa. My girlfriend and I slept on a mattress in the back for six months and crossed the Sahara in it twice. They’re brilliant off road. Because of the articulated suspension system they’re really smooth. You can take them anywhere.”

Matt was quite a preacher and could not extol the virtues of the post-war minimalist design highly enough. I agreed on Jonno’s behalf that we would all meet again in a few days, go over the car and learn about its peculiar design.

We have Matt to thank as much for his tips on maintenance as for his introduction to the world of the Citroën 2CV enthusiast. He showed us how to love the car as a lifestyle choice – a manifestation of a strange yet marvellously elegant logic. The car is simply not like other cars. It has a motorcycle engine with cylinders that run horizontally not vertically. The wheels are mounted on gigantic anthropomorphic arms – essential to the novel suspension system. The windscreen wipers were originally powered by the speedometer cable and the gear shifter, a horizontal piston mounted where you would expect to find the radio, takes at least a couple of days to get used to.

Not only is the experience of driving and the mechanics quite unlike that of an ordinary car, there is something more than just novelty at play. Most of the body work is actually flat; the windscreen, the windows, the doors and the boot. Yet the pressed wings, bonnet and fabric roof give the lingering impression of a voluptuous and curvy car. The never ending oddness of this little French motor may have originated in the vehicle’s design brief. It specified that the car must accommodate a peasant driving while wearing clogs and a hat and was to be able to transport a basket of eggs across the furrows of a ploughed field without breaking a single shell. The humble French farmer should have inspired more cars.

Matt was really to prove his worth when, with just a day to go, our electrics burnt out. On a particularly stormy evening the window wipers had become jammed, the motor overheated and the cables set on fire. The electrical system came into the cab through the bulkhead in a bundle. This bundle had melted together. Mercifully the ignition still worked but many of the wires lay bare and it was in real danger of shorting again. We also had no lights or dashboard controls.

“No problem,” said Matt, “The electrics in a Citroën 2CV are simple really. I could write you the whole wiring system out on a postcard.”
Thankfully his confidence proved to be reasonably well-founded. We started the electrical work rather late, having spent the morning changing the engine and gear oils and replacing the points. Then Matt and I stripped all of the cables out and replaced them in order of priority; firstly the ignition, then the headlights, brake lights and reversing lights. Things were going well so we fitted an air horn and a sound system while Jonno laid a carpet to dampen noise and made a platform in the boot for his bed. By the afternoon the whole street had come out to watch and get involved as it was one of the first hot days of the summer. Matt’s next-door neighbour sat at her step and soaked up the sun while her children ran about playing with oily nuts and spanners.

We also had a couple of electrical engineers casting their suspicious eyes over our Heath Robinson handy work. Zaff, a high spirited Syrian of substantial bearing bellowed critical comments about the rigour of the joints, their capacity to carry high amps or our junkshop tools. Despite appearances it was all in good humour and he also gave us a taste of Syrian coffee and told us stories of running over German tourists on holiday in Crete. Then he showed us round his garden.

Zaff liked collecting things; strong, useful things like Saabs, fire doors and welding equipment. Conveniently, these interests worked well together. For example, his three Saabs were packed, immovable onto his modest drive. They were all full, and I mean completely full, of useful things. From the foot wells to the roofs, the boots and the parcel shelves, all were totally jam packed with tools and paraphernalia including four different types of welder, five wire brushes, a number of children’s toys and several metres of a variety of pipes – a length of which we used to shield our new electrics.

Ingeniously, a number of hoarded fire doors had been combined to create a huge garden shed cum workshop, although it had become so full of stuff it was barely useable and impossible to find anything. But Zaff was busy making more storage space. He had moved, by hand, several tons of earth from the bottom of the slope in his garden to the top. Having built up a retaining wall, to keep the soil piled at the back of the garden, he was now building a steel structure in front. The structure was to support an extension to his new raised, flat garden and give him vast amounts of storage space underneath. We were recruited to help move some huge sheets of steel that had been cut from a ship’s hull. They were sitting on a frame about four feet up and were all about four foot square. It took both me and Jonno to take the weight of one tentatively while Zaff pushed it into place. Zaff had lifted them all up himself and told us the whole project had taken him only a few weeks.

When Jonno and I returned from our tour, a little bewildered, Matt had reached the end of his tether. Problems had developed when he tried to install the blinking system for the indicators and hazard warning lights. After a very long and challenging day we resigned ourselves to setting off to London and into the unknown without any indicators.

We went back to our respective homes and packed. Unsettled by the last minute set backs and with the dawning realisation of how difficult the journey would be, I had a troubled sleep.

The following day we left as early as we could manage and set off to Jonno’s aunt’s house in Essex where we would base ourselves for a prompt start for London the following day. In true Mongol Rally spirit we managed to get there pretty late as we had more to sort before leaving than we thought. After a few glasses of wine and a very welcome meal we were ready for bed.

Rising/Falling – Always Hoping -can be bought online at Amazon.co.uk, - ordered by your local bookshop for just £8.74 (the price the team’s car was auctioned for at the end of the rally) Just note the ISBN:9780956196613 - or bought direct from the suppliers @ £10.99 (£8.74 plus £2.25 p&p) Address Cheques to Craig Chamberlain, Glovers Cottage, Lazonby, Penrith, CA10 1AJ