We Need to Weaken the Mixture Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  ‘We need to weaken the mixture’

  1. ‘The Marrowbone and Cleaver’

  2. ‘That ride changed me’

  3. ‘The TV lot knew something wasn’t right’

  4. ‘No one I knew thought it was a good idea. Not one person’

  5. ‘Killing myself, that would be a failure’

  6. ‘The last thing I needed to be doing was chucking that thing down the road. It cost £450,000’

  7. ‘Loading shit in the trailer takes more precision than you’d think’

  8. ‘Ducking down to make sure I didn’t bang my head on something that wasn’t there’

  9. ‘Married a Latvian former Nazi conscript; brought up five children, saw all those grandkids being born …’

  10. ‘Hang on, boys. Who am I listening to?’

  11. ‘It was me who came up with the idea of Russia’

  12. ‘Terminal 4, that said a lot. Usually you only fly to wanky places from Terminal 4’

  13. ‘Arsehole checker, that was his full-time job’

  14. ‘He wore big spacers on the bottom of his shoes’

  15. ‘There’s stories of people being so poisoned by radiation that their eyes changed colour’

  16. ‘Honesty Tourette’s’

  17. ‘It’s going light over the crest, scratting for grip at 175mph’

  18. ‘Back in my shed it was like Crime Scene Investigation’

  19. ‘I’d have lived in a ditch to attend a school like that’

  20. ‘Where would I have ever met Jenson Button? He doesn’t come and empty the bins at the truck yard’

  21. ‘When it’s blowing at full chat it feels like you’re in a hurricane’

  22. ‘I stayed up the top end during the birth’

  23. ‘Nigel Racing Corporation’

  24. ‘An entertainer, a showman. That’s the last thing I am’

  Picture Section

  Index

  Copyright

  About the Book

  ‘I can’t stop biting off more than I can chew. Maybe I’m wearing everything out, but I believe the body is a fantastic thing and it will repair itself and I’ll go again. If it’s running too rich, I don’t stop what I’m doing, just weaken the mixture and carry on.’

  Since we last heard from him, Guy Martin has restored a 1983 Williams F1 car then raced Jenson Button in it; helped to build a First World War tank; ridden with Putin’s favourite biker gang the Night Wolves; competed on the classic endurance circuit; stood on top of one of Chernobyl’s nuclear reactors and taken part in his last ever Isle of Man TT.

  Then there’s the stuff he really can’t wait to get out of bed for: 12-hour shifts for a local haulage firm and tatie farming in his new John Deere tractor.

  Besides all this, he’s saved his local pub from closure and become a dad.

  But let him tell you his own stories, in his own words:

  ‘You’re getting it from the horse’s mouth. No filter. I hope you enjoy it.’

  About the Author

  Except for one summer spent sleeping inside a truck in a concrete yard in Northern Ireland, Guy Martin has lived within 20 miles of the Grimsby hospital he was born in, on the 4th November 1981. But that hasn’t stopped the professional truck mechanic from winning multiple international road races, plus scoring fifteen Isle of Man TT podiums. Nor has it prevented him from becoming a regular face on prime-time Channel 4, presenting critically acclaimed documentaries and travelogues, as well as his popular returning series Speed with Guy Martin. Did we mention he’s also the author of three phenomenal number-one bestselling memoirs? Not bad for a truck fitter.

  ‘WE NEED TO WEAKEN THE MIXTURE’

  THE NAME OF this book came to me on an early morning drive to Silverstone, where I was going to race Jenson Button in a pair of Williams historic Formula One cars, one of which I’d helped restore. I was within three miles of the circuit, with time to spare, when I pulled into a petrol station for a cup of tea and the loo.

  My mate Gary was in the van with me. When I walked towards the services toilet I looked over my shoulder and told him I needed to weaken the mixture. I knew I had to because I daren’t fart.

  I could tell by the look on his face he didn’t know what I was talking about, and I’d be surprised if you did either. Like quite a lot of directions I’ve taken in life, it started with my dad. He swears by cod liver oil, and he was still working on trucks – hard, physical labour – six days a week, into his seventies, so I started taking it, hoping it would do the same for me. The difference between us, when it comes to cod liver oil at least, is he’s very much a recommended dosage kind of person and I’m not.

  I’ll take between seven or eight of the one-a-day cod liver oil capsules every day. And I’m not talking about the little M&M-sized capsules: no, no, no, no. The ones I take would choke a horse.

  There are times, like that Thursday on the way to Silverstone, when I know I might be overdoing it and the cod liver oil is purging my system. When I have – how would a doctor put it? – very loose stools, I know I’ve purged the system and I need to weaken the mixture. I don’t do anything drastic, I just need to knock it back a tablet, the equivalent of a quarter turn of the air mixture screw or dropping a carburettor’s needle a notch, to get back on track. That’s as close to a guide to life as I have now: don’t do anything too drastic, just weaken the mixture.

  I’ve started giving the same cod liver capsules to Nigel the dog, too, because he gets a bit stiff now and then. Sometimes I give him one in the morning and one at night, but if he has a runny arse I know I need to back it off for him, too.

  The loose stool is the sign either of us is running too rich and we need to weaken the mixture.

  We’ve sold a fair few of the previous books, so someone must like them. I’ve written this one the same way I wrote When You Dead, You Dead and Worms to Catch, writing most chapters not long after what I’m describing actually happened. That means I’m writing it without the benefit of much hindsight, but with the memories, thoughts and emotions I felt at the time still in my mind. Doing it this way means I contradict myself sometimes, like when I wrote I was never going back to the Isle of Man TT and only an idiot would do something like that. It turns out I was that idiot. The pros of writing books like I choose to, almost like a diary of the interesting, and sometimes not so interesting, stuff I do, is you’re getting it straight from the horse’s mouth, as it happened, with no filter.

  The problem with that, at least from where I’m sat, is you’re sometimes reading about me at my worst, when I’m annoyed, tired, mithered and ready to get back to the truck yard. You’ll spot those bits when you get to them. This book was written over a period of 18 months and after finishing it and reading it through from start to finish, I’ve been a bit harsh about some people and sounded like a massive wanker at other times. I did think about changing it so I didn’t look so bad, but that wouldn’t have been the true story, so I’ve kept it just how I felt in the heat of the moment, not the more mellow view I had after time has healed the situation. I hope you enjoy it.

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘The Marrowbone and Cleaver’

  THERE WASN’T MUCH time between finding out Kirmington’s pub was closing and me thinking I should buy it. I look back now and realise I bought the Marrowbone and Cleaver for the wrong reason. Becoming a pub owner was purely an emotional decision not a business one. As far as I was concerned Kirmo, the village I grew up in and still think of as the centre of the universe, had always had a pub and it needs one.

  Once the thought had lo
dged in my brain things happened quickly.

  At first I didn’t think anyone was going to take it over, then I was told that someone was going to buy it. That turned out to be rubbish. Then someone else was going to buy it and turn it into a house and that didn’t happen, but I was worried someone would so I rung the pub chain that owned it, Enterprise Inns, and put a bid in. They had another couple of people in the running, or so they told me. A few days later they accepted my bid. Now what? I thought. From it closing to me handing over the money was no more than a month.

  For what it is, a pub, with parking, a bit of land and outbuildings, it wasn’t expensive, it might have been a bit over £140,000. I’m not Richard Branson or a property tycoon, and I’m not flash or owt, but I’ve got a few quid, so I thought, let’s keep it going as a pub. So many pubs are being converted into houses, and I understand why, but it wasn’t right for Kirmo. I’m not sure if this one had planning permission for a change of use, but how long would it have to stand as a boarded-up eyesore before the council changed their minds about that?

  I didn’t need to get a loan or mortgage. That meant I didn’t have to ‘waste’ money on a property survey. The Marrowbone was a bit of a shit tip by the time it had closed, I could see that. It was tired around the edges especially the kitchen, which was a bomb-site and wouldn’t pass any kind of inspection. It was what I’d describe as grufty: sticky around the door handles, and a bit of hair in the congealed fat in the corners. Even though it was years after the fag ban, there was still a stale smell of cigarette smoke about the place. Food is such a big part of most pubs’ livelihoods now that it was a priority. So we needed to do it up. A bloke from Kirmington, Phil Tate, who my dad knew and lived opposite my sister, was chosen to manage the refurbishment of the place. He’d lived in Kirmington for years and he ended up doing a great job.

  Phil explained the options. ‘We can do it up or we can do it up or we can do it up.’ I said I wanted it doing up, but not a hundred grand do it up.

  Even though I always wanted to keep it operating as a pub I didn’t want to have anything to do with the day-to-day running; that was the furthest thing from my mind. The Marrowbone had had the same landlord for 20 years, Robin and his wife, Ros, right from me being a lad. He was a good bloke, and would serve us underage on a special occasion. He got bollocked for it by my mum when I went home pissed on New Year’s Day and puked up over my younger brother. If you had a picture of a country pub landlord, that was Robin.

  After he retired it went through a few managers and landlords in a hurry, none staying for more than two years and some a lot less than that. I had a word with the couple who had been running it when it closed, and they were nice, but they weren’t the right people to take on the new business. Then I had a word with my older sister, Sal, when we were out in Bonneville for the Triumph land speed job. She had previous experience in the bar world. She was the manager of Grimsby’s Chicago Rock Café, where I’d also worked as a glass collector for a while to raise money to go road racing in my early twenties.

  When I asked her if she’d be interested in running it I told her there was no pressure, I was just giving her the option. She’d been accepted on, and was just about to start, a nursing course, following in our mum’s footsteps. I knew she was interested in running the pub, though. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  When the pub fitters got stuck in it turned out there was a leak here and a leak there and the place needed more than I had expected. It wanted a new bar because it was rotten, and the upstairs was a mess, so that needed to be gutted. We still haven’t done anything with the upstairs yet. Perhaps I should have had that survey … The pub closed its doors in August 2016 – some thought forever – and reopened on 3 December the same year. During that time I hardly had anything to do with it. Sal was sorting it, with a lot of help from Andy Spellman, the bloke who looks after the business side of the Guy Martin Proper stuff.

  Sal soon decided she did want to run it, so we came to an agreement that for six months or a year, depending on how it went, she could get the place up and on its feet without any rent. After that she’d pay rent to me. When people ask me about the pub I tell them it’s not mine, it’s my sister’s, because I don’t want to sound like a flash Harry. If I wanted to be more accurate I’d explain it’s my pub, but her business. I have nothing to do with the day-to-day decision-making. It’s all up to her.

  It’s gone from closing down, owing money to the VAT man and suppliers, to a right successful place, and that’s down to her. She’s a grafter, like my dad, my mum, all of us Martins. Some people don’t understand why I want to work so hard, getting up at stupid o’clock to work on the trucks in the middle of winter, but it’s been bred into us and we can’t shake it. The pub has taken over Sal’s life, but she’s doing bloody well. She’s grafting her hole off.

  When it came to decorating the place I wanted it to look different. I wondered if we could have a farm trough in the men’s toilet, and we ended up with three metal buckets to pee into. I came up with the idea to have stained glass in the front door, and the design is the official emblem of the 166 Bomber Squadron, which was based at Kirmington air base, now Humberside airport, during the war. The bloke who made it did such a great job of it, with the bulldog in the middle and the word Tenacity, underneath, that if someone told you it had been there since 1943 you’d believe them.

  There’s a little bit of motorbike stuff in the pub, some of it mine, some of it belonging to my dad. We put some ornaments and old bits and pieces of my bikes in there, bits of wrecked engines that I’ve blown up, but a lot of it was stolen by people visiting, so my dad went around bolting everything down.

  There’s usually a bike parked near the kitchen door. The Martek, the Racefit Harley I bought from Spellman and the Yamaha TY80 that Sal and I shared as our first bike have all been in there for a bit. There’s a lot of bomber and Lancaster stuff, because it’s important to the local area. There’s a big antique map of Lincolnshire on the chimney breast, with Kirmo as the centre of the universe; a photo from the start of the 1950s race at the Nürburgring; instrument gauges from old aircraft; RAF patches and photos from the war. You can buy Kirmo T-shirts and our woolly hats. Ryan Quickfall, the illustrator from Newcastle who did the pictures in this book and has designed a load of T-shirts and calendars for us, designed the pub sign. It’s Nigel the dog with a massive bone in his mouth, being chased up the High Street, past the church, by a butcher swinging a cleaver, while a Lancaster flies overhead.

  The local brewery, Batemans, from Wainfleet All Saints, near Skegness, contacted us to say they could supply a special Skull and Spanners ale for the pub. We all liked the idea and sell a lot of nine-gallon barrels of it. Sal says it’s the second most popular drink after Carling. We’ve kept it exclusive to the Marrowbone and the brewery’s own visitor centre. The pub’s a free house, meaning Sal can buy her drinks from wherever she likes, she isn’t tied to one supplier, but Sal likes dealing with Batemans. And we sell Mr Porky pork scratchings, of course.

  We’ve had a few bands playing. The opening night was a dead good covers band called Electric 80s, who I knew about because I met one of the members of the band, Terry, through filming Speed programmes. He works for Air Products, who supplied the helium for the balloon I was hung under for the failed human-powered Channel crossing flight.

  The opening night was heaving, full of locals relieved that their pub had reopened and wasn’t going to be turned into something else. Sal was brilliant, proving right away to be the best choice for the job. I hoped it would continue like that and it hasn’t slowed down much since. That’s down to the good grub and friendly service.

  Then Spellman’s band, The Lilyhammers, said they’d play the first New Year’s Eve if I agreed to get on stage with them and sing. It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever done, because I can’t sing and there was going to be a room full of people. On the way there Shazza (Sharon, my missus) had the song on the van stereo and was helpi
ng me learn it, Karaoke-style, to the original. Before it was my time, I was out of my comfort zone, sat shaking in the front of my van trying to memorise the words to ‘Place Your Hands’ by Reef that Spellman had printed out for me. I was like a rabbit in the headlights, but if I was doing it, I was doing it, so I was fully committed and trying to belt it out. Then I tried ‘Hard to Handle’, the Otis Redding song that’s been covered by dozens of folk. I suppose I was attempting The Black Crowes’ version, but I made a dog’s dinner of it. I think the crowd could appreciate my commitment to the cause, even if it wasn’t the best singing they’d ever heard. It’s good to get right out of your comfort zone, though, and whenever I hear those songs I still laugh.

  We also had the Ken Fox Wall of Death pitch up. We wanted to set it up in the car park, but, when he turned up, Ken realised it wouldn’t fit. So, at the last minute, we set up on the playing fields opposite the pub. It was to coincide with the 166 Reunion weekend, when the surviving members of the bomber squadron turn up to the local church for a remembrance service. The pub raised £1,500 for the church that weekend, and I did two shows a night on the wall with Ken and his hell riders. What a life. I was riding one of the Hondas I’d learned on and the viewing platform was packed. There was a hell of an atmosphere, and even though I’d done it a good few times, there’d been a good few months since I’d ridden the Wall of Death and it takes some concentration and technique. Don’t clip the wire, don’t catch anyone’s eye in the crowd. Ken didn’t have to give me any reminders, or prompts from the middle; he let me get on with it.

  Sal says the locals are the lifeblood of the place. She reckons it closing for four months made those who agree with me, that Kirmo should have a pub, really appreciate the place. There are some in the village who complain about the noise of the odd band we have or the racket from the Wall of Death, that was in the village for all of three days. Sal has had to deal with the council, and had inspections when bands have played and they’ve not upheld the complaints. It doesn’t matter that the pub has been saved or that we live next to a commercial airport – people still want to complain.