I remember first using Le Shuttle Eurotunnel in July ’94, only a couple of months after it opened. Two Uni friends and I loaded our bikes into my Vauxhall Astra Estate and drove over to watch a couple of Tour de France stages.
We pulled on our Uni of Humberside CC jerseys, rode the team time trial route before the professionals arrived and somehow ended up being cheered – maybe it was jeered – on the main climb. I even signed an autograph or two at the finish… having been very badly mistaken for one of the riders.
Thirty-two years later, it was cars rather than bikes. I found myself following this orange McLaren GT onto the train. Its owner got out to clean the windscreen. I got out to stretch my legs. We struck up a conversation and spent half an hour putting the world to rights.
A mum asked if her young lad could have his pic taken beside the McLaren… and the owner went one better by inviting him to sit in it. Nice chap. Lovely motor.
You can’t do that on a ferry. They don’t let you linger on the car deck.
Andrew Greenhalgh 