The scene !

The scene

The scene is something i am new to - vw's i aint , i can't really say i remember a scene as such when i first stared dubbing , there were those who owned a vw and there were those who did not and never the twain shall meet.

Fast forward 30 years and we come back to a " scene " a large group of people who own vw's and are heralded as the scene complete with our own peculiar way of communicating , good vibes , karma dude etc , the in folk - cool aint we ?

When Lou and i bought our first camper way back in the day, we bought it because it was a means of transport that was reliable and we could sleep in it , no one ever said " eh dude" or " cool bus man " to us and if they ever did they were spaced out junkies who we kept an eye on in case they robbed stuff while our backs were turned .

We did all the things that these days people wax lyrically about on vw forums , we camped on beaches and surfed , we ventured far an wide and we occasionally met fellow bay owners who invited us over for a drink and compared our vans , the conversions, fittings and tales , when we saw another camper we generally waved , didn't seem to matter if it was a vw or not we just waved cos we were all having a holiday in our vans , the wave was massive if you saw a van the same as yours though, but there was no scene as such , just a bunch of people who had scrimped and saved enough money to buy a decent van .

There was a a sort of beetle scene but it was more like a band of people who were travelling on the cheap with cars that they could fix themselves and they were quite often well clued up , they were also very helpful if the bay needed attention , but i don't think for one minute they were a organised group , i remember a lot of aircooled owners and fixers were ex bikers that knew they could repair them and they were very good at it ,nothing seemed to phase them , we never really needed help from anyone because our van was well maintained but we met lots of people who had benefitted from their knowledge and kindness . good folk they were too !

However we could see where it was going , the amount of people travelling with beat up old splittys and beat up old beetles seemed to increase year after year , partly because they were so cheap but in the case of the splitty owners - because you could sleep in them by the sea and go surfing in the morning.

Now we do have a scene ,t'internet helps it grow and shows attract people who wouldn't normally part with their hard earned for a rust bucket , the vibe is good the craic is brill and the people seem well clued up , it's nice to be part of a scene meeting new folk here and there and it is nice to be able to keep in touch via t'internet and iphones etc , it is nice to know that wherever we may travel there is possible help around the corner , we never had that back in the day , we just used the AA or fixed it ourselves if we could , Nahh - i like the scene it's kinda comforting .

Just reminiscing !