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

“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

Jonno’s aunt woke us with bacon sandwiches and his uncle got up to see us off too. We had just about stopped our yawning and eye rubbing by the time we reached the outskirts of London and although it was still cool, it was clearing and promised to be a gloriously sunny day. Somewhere in the suburbs we spotted our first fellow Rally team. They were a trio who, I was surprised to note, were carrying – in addition to their provisions for the four week transcontinental drive – both a trampoline and monkey-bike.

We soon split up to take our own separate routes to Hyde Park. Even so we somehow managed to arrive simultaneously and park up next to each other at the front of the queue which was already a kilometre long. What a circus it was. Our entrance should have been spectacular, coming as we did through a cycle gate, to the left of the traffic bollards, under a tree and onto the road with a bump. However Dan, the man in charge, was not at all impressed. With the stiffest telling off I had received in years we proceeded, a little embarrassed, and joined the crowd which was excitedly discussing routes and pre-race disasters, modifications, rocket boosters and oil slick devices. Rumour had it that Jack Osborne was there with a huge support vehicle but we were busy talking to the brave teams setting off in original Minis, Trabants, ice-cream vans and Hackney cabs.
We also caught up again with Neil and Jan, self-confessed ‘Rally Bores’. It was an encounter with this eccentric couple that had sparked Jonno and Andy, Jonno’s original team mate, to enter the Rally in the first place. Neil and Jan were veterans of the Mongol Rally, twice attempting it in a Citroën 2CV and succeeding the second time. They were desperate to do the Rally again and avidly followed its developments, meeting up with us to share photographs, tell us stories and give us advice.

It was great to see them strolling lopsidedly along. Both suited up in their squires’ outfits (top hats and tails), their startling difference in size was at once dramatic and endearing. My parents had also come down from Cumbria and bundled some supplies and homemade jam into the car. My mother had stitched us up a Mongolian flag which we strapped to the car where it flapped lazily in the wind as we revved our engine in the pre-race frenzy.

It was nearly too much. Our lack of preparation and the scale of the undertaking began to sink in. We were to begin our journey with no hazard warning lights and no indicators. On a more personal note, I only had the underpants I was wearing and not even a pair of socks. More immediately we had no plan of how to get from London down to Calais and little more idea how to get from Calais to Kazakhstan.

With horns blaring and flags waving we pulled out into London proper. It was chaotic and would have been totally disorientating had I any notion of orientation left. As much by pure chance as anything else, we made it to Trafalgar Square, did a lap with a motley collection of ralliers and drove off into the unknown. We soon got split up but as we were all heading to Calais it was never long before we passed another team.

At Calais, we decided to head for Belgium. The home of the EU seemed as good a place as any. Moreover, in Belgium, they celebrate a national holiday on the 21st July. With a laser show in Brussels and parties in all the towns it was the place to be. After consulting the map we headed to Bruges. At this opportune moment I would like to tackle the myth that the Brits alone, amongst our european neighbours, get drunk on such occasions. It appeared that every self-respecting man, woman, child and dog was inebriated. On arriving in Bruges, the main square was full of families dancing and singing along to a live band. It was too late to find the youth hostel we had been recommended so we chose to drive out of town for the first of many roadside sleeps.

By the following night, the 22nd, we were just outside our expected destination, Prague. In the morning, we encountered huge tail-backs caused by a terrible motor crash on the ring road in Prague. In order to save fuel, avoid the risk of overheating and to provide entertainment for the hundreds of Czechs also caught in the queue, we cut the engine and pushed the car some miles down the middle of a triple lane clearway that ran parallel to the river. We also had a much needed pause for lunch in a small but beautiful provincial town.

While Jonno read or slept I snuck off and bought a number of cassettes for the car from a man who I am quite certain was the only punk in miles. His shop was as still and beautiful as the rest of the town but more welcoming and intimate. Inside I had the first feeling of the trip of being in a truly foreign land as the wonderful array of comics, T-shirts and CDs all spoke out to me in a strange language. Outside the summer sun was hot and as dizzying as homemade wine. I am sure I will always remember the sparseness of that dusty, nostalgic town. It was nearly deserted, with the inhabitants perhaps in the fields with the harvest or away on holiday. Even so it was easy to appreciate its generous proportions, slow pace and resistance to unnecessary and modish change. However it is the light I will remember best. So warm and all encompassing that it felt as though it had ceased to fall from the sky and instead came from the air itself.

Jonno decided that one of the songs on the new cassette would be the theme to the trip although I am convinced he chose a different song every time. It was fun either way and we were soon racing along, top down, singing along with gusto and conviction to the mysterious lyrics.

By evening we were lost, confused by diversions on the road out of the Czech Republic. A man of around five foot five with stubborn tufty blond hair came to our aid. He was not only handsome but truly beautiful and so were his car and his son. He was so proud, so steady and so dispassionate, he might have been an angel. His son, also blond, sat absolutely still, expressionless, except for a distinct hint of superiority, waiting patiently on a booster seat for his father. The car was a 1970’s Porsche 911, jet black, with neither speck nor mar, and as glossy and enchanting as a precious stone.

Several hours later we ended up hopelessly lost again and utterly exhausted somewhere in a lush and idyllic national park in the mountains of southern Poland. I insisted on stopping and having a long sleep before continuing the journey.

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