John O’Groats to Land’s End run LCGB 30th anniversary

During the early months of 1988, members of the Lambretta Club Great Britain were informed through the club magazine New Jet Set of a rather daunting challenge. It was announced that there would be an attempt to do an endurance run all the way from John O’Groats to Land’s End in the autumn of that year. It was an open invitation to all members with the idea being to raise money for charity. The event would finish off in style with a rally at the Lambretta Preservation Society museum in Devon run by the late Mike Karslake.

Planning ahead

General secretary Kevin Walsh was to take charge of organising the event, along with several of the committee members. Kevin can’t remember exactly how the challenge came about in the first place but when asked replied: “I think it was my idea as other people around that time had done it.” It was true several successful attempts had been made but they were only done by individuals or small groups. Nothing like this had been done on such a grand scale and certainly not with the number of Lambrettas predicted to be present this time.300 members and although not all were expected to be making the attempt a significant proportion of them were. Judging by the initial response from members, the signs were it would be heavily subscribed.