Mara's Musings

This is just a reminder from a campervan enthusiast who is now an ex-VW campervan owner.

The Main Suspect

Genevieve is no more. Or is likely to be no-more according to the Insurance Company who are currently assessing the damage that was caused by a fault on the battery which as most enthusiasts know (in the T25 at least) is housed underneath the drivers seat.  The picture on the right is what is left of my battery, after something caused a short and it set light to the back of my drivers seat.  Since I was driving at the time, this was not a particularly pleasant experience!

Remains of the Driver's seat.

In the time it took from smelling and seeing smoke, pulling over and getting out through the back so I could grab the dog - which was under a minute - the whole of the back of the seat was ablaze.  No fire retardant foam in these old vans.  The Fire Brigade arrived in about 10 minutes and the whole van was billowing black smoke.  The image on the left shows what is left of the back of my seat, which was actually very little!

A full set of the images of what is left of the front of the van following this fire can be seen by clicking here.

Genevieve in better days

The view from the insurance company based on my description of the damage and everyone who has seen it including the guy who came to tow her to the assessors is that she is a complete write-off.  I am now waiting to hear back from the insurance.  Despite being quite upset and pissed off by the whole thing, and having had a pretty awful experience, I cannot help but think that considering the speed with which this fire took hold I am lucky to be alive. Or at the very least to have escaped a lengthy and painful stay in the burns unit.

It is the end of a dream for me that I had of owning a VW camper every since seeing the red VW microbus in Arlo Guthrie's film "Alice's Restaurant".  I don't know if I will ever own another, they are expensive to  buy and even more expensive to run, but at least I did live my dream for a while!

So for all you van owners - check the electrics and make sure the battery housing is sealed tight.  It seems likely according to the brigade that something had got into the housing to make the battery short, emit a spark and the rest, as they say, is history.  And so is my van.

Yesterday Genevieve decided to throw a potential spanner in the works and develop a nice big hole in the plastic covering of the roof/sky light 9 days before we are due on site at Glastobury Festival for a glorious 10 days in the Theatre and Circus field.  Rain was, literally, pouring in through it during yesterday's downpour.


I am now facing the daunting prospect of clambering up on the roof to fix it using the wonders of silicone gel.  This is not good for someone afraid of heights.  The alternative is, of course, freezing in the tent and the cold is something that I really suffer from and probably the only thing I find difficult about the whole experience of the wonder that is Pilton festival!

I am also moderately excited about the prospect of sleeping in the van this year -  the first time I have been given an on-site pass. I feel a bit concerned about the fact that my partner feels using the van will cut us off from the team because we cannot go onto the grassed camping area and have to park in the central reservation with the other vans and vehicles for health and safety reasons - namely, it's full of petrol and other explosive things like camping gas! 

From a personal point of view my paramount concern is comfort, less back issues when I get home and the fact that I have a nice cosy gas heater in the van but I don't really want that at the expense of my partner's experience being spoilt.  (Yeah, I'm sad but I love him cos he's great!)

I guess we will see how it goes, we are taking the tent and associated bits so if he hates it we can always pitch it as usual.  Not sure how safe the gas heater is going to be in there! ;)