Somewhere in my disorganised collection of trials videos I have a bit of footage of a London Motor Club Gloucester Trial, dating from about 50 years ago. It shows Allards, HRG’s, Dellows and the like, tackling hills like Nailsworth Ladder and Ham Mill, hills now used on Stroud & District’s Cotswold Clouds Trial.

In December 1998, for no better reason than the fact that I had not been to this sort of trial for a long time, I decided to spectate on that year’s event for, indeed, it is still held every year in the Cotswolds. The format of the event has somewhat changed. If you delve into the history of trials, you find that, at first, they were tests of the reliability, and later the hill-climbing ability, of the production sports and saloon cars of the day.

In the 1930’s, reliability trials gave way to sporting trials, which were dominated by small production sports cars, mainly MG’s, Singers and Austin Sevens, until Sidney Allard started changing the face of trials with his fearsome V8’s. At around that time, various competitors started to have special cars made for the events and some fairly weird and wonderful machines were the result. By the 1950’s, the V8’s were outclassed by small nimble specials, often consisting of Ford 10 engines in Austin chassis (Dellows started that way). Ten years later, the New Zealander Mike Cannon was producing cars barely capable of being driven on the road at any speed. Eventually the need for road-legal cars was dropped and the sport moved totally off-road, becoming known as NTF (National Trials Formula) trials. Development continued, until today’s competitors use cars owing more to racing and aircraft technology than most of the vehicles we associate with the trials world! The latest cars make JABS appear like a small lorry!

Neil McHardy's pictures of modern Sporting Trial's cars show how things have changed since the days of the V8's as exemplified by Mike Furse's Mercury Special, resurrected at Tring Park in 1976.

So where do they play? This year’s event took place on the farm at the foot of Sandfords Knoll, which is ironic in that Stroud & DMC still use Sandfords Hill in the Cotswolds Clouds and the MG Car Club used it as long ago as 1937 in their “Abingdon” Trial. That’s progress! (?)

Being by nature a poor spectator, I had ended up marshalling on the 1998 event. This was obviously appreciated as I was asked to come again, being sent a letter, entry form and final instructions before the event. A start time of 10.45 on a winter Sunday seemed a little leisurely, but the event started on time and two rounds of nine hills were attempted before lunch.

“My” section had a touch of John Parsons about it, consisting of a fairly straight climb to a point about halfway up the bank, but then it turned right back down to the bottom and right again to make a loop, crossing over at about the 9 marker. The final climb beyond the crossing was about 1 in 3 and remained unclimbed all morning, even after we eased the bottom corner for the second round.

Lunchtime gave me enough time to have a look at Sandford’s proper and renew acquaintance with the son of the original owner of my V8 Mercury Special, which still languishes in the back of my garage. (Thank you, Cliff (Morrell) for reminding me how long it is since I last used it!).

Only one run was attempted in the afternoon, during which the Clerk of the Course managed to achieve near perfection with my hill. Only one car of the thirty went clear and we had scores ranging from zero to seven, scoring being exactly the same as for PCT’s.

The event finished at about three, leaving time for me to visit Land’s End Trial organiser, Ken Hobbs, before returning home. A fourth round would have been possible, but everyone seemed perfectly happy with three, which left everyone plenty of time to extricate themselves from the paddock!

Memories of the day include perfect weather – clear and sunny after a week of rain (no need for tight, naggery sections), the food wagon and a proper loo! (These people obviously like their creature comforts!). From my vantagepoint, I could see well into Wales with the Severn on my left and the beginning of the Stroudwater valley going away to the right.

Finally, some organisational notes. The cars are all basically similar, so they classify the entry on the previous success or otherwise of the drivers. Results were available very shortly after the last car finished (no index to work out) and a copy arrived by first-class post on the following Wednesday. Awards were presented on the day. At the start, a small group of three or four competitors started at each hill, so all hills were up and running immediately. (Each entrant’s starting hill was stated on the entry list.) After lunch, each group started at a hill three further on than the one started at in the morning. At the end, the last car to attempt each section took down all the markers and took them back to the paddock. Very neat!

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	Moved here from The Classical Gas Site on 1st July 2001