In May 2003 the Bongo Fury club and website was officially launched. We figured out how to get the club to the top of the internet search engines and waited to see what would happen. At the time Marianne and myself were working full time at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and hating every minute of it. We were looking for a route out, but never ever imagined that running Bongo Fury would be be our reason for departure.

Within a few weeks 23 poeople had signed up to be (non-paying) members. Indeed Peter Hyde (member no. 7) and Colin Woods (8) are still with us today! We decided to send everyone a newsletter, pictured above. In this rare collectors item we informed everyone that we were getting English language owners manuals imported, and that if people were interested we were going camping in Wiltshire in late September and all were welcome to attend. We called it the “Sad Anoraks Day Out”. By the way the newsletter was designed and printed by our good friend Pat Moran who also prints our membership cards and has been a key part of Bongo Fury for the last 20 years.

I don’t know what it’s like now but the Postern Hill campsite in the Savernake Forest, near Marlborough was not a good place to hold a meeting. Although the toilets were open the shower block was closed and it was a long way to the pub and the newsagent. We would not make that mistake again!

By this time we had about 110 members and had started charging a nominal admin fee to cover our costs. So it was quite remarkable that 22 Bongos and their occupants tuned up from as far away as Morecambe, Cornwall and Sunderland. There was a report back in edition 2 of the newsletter.

My memory of this event is a bit vague, but I certainly remember Mike and Pam Longhurst (member number 37) and Jan and John Barlow (97) being there. Indeed, they are still regulars at the Bongo Bash 20 years later. Also present at the meeting was Kit Palmer (RIP) who suggested that we should hold future meetings in a more central location. He nominated Lickhill Manor in Stourport, Worcestershire and we have been going ever since.

The main subject that came  up at Postern Hill was where everyone could obtain parts on a regular basis. We promised to look in to it.

In May 2004 we held the first Bongo Bash at Stourport. 60 Bongos turned up. We had managed to source some parts and set up a table which did brisk business. More meetings were arranged in different sites around the UK. A dedicated members area of the website with a number of fact sheets was established. We also introduced a more structured membership package and were considering whether it was possible to actually make a living from the club so we could leave DWP! We had launched a database of Bongo friendly garages and the Bongo Fury Forum went live. A number of dedicated Bongo dealerships had been established including Wellhouse Leisure, Imperial Cars and 321 Away. Things were on the move. And so were we.

We made a decision. We figured if we could run the club side of things on a cost-neutral basis by charging a low membership fee, then we could run the parts and accessories side of things as a commercial business and maybe, just maybe, pay ourselves a salary, make a small profit and leave our jobs. So in June 2004, with membership at about 500, but a whole untapped “non-member” market out there we took the plunge. We bravely handed in our notices, put our Sheffield house up for sale and moved to a rented property near Kelso in the Scottish Borders (Mellerstain Mill, pictured above) where we established an online/mail order business called the Bongo Shop. Very few firms were selling Bongo parts and we had a captive audience. Club membership climbed to over 1,000.

But living 6 miles from the nearest Post Office (and pub) wasn’t really for us, so in April 2004 we moved back to Sheffield where at least we could understand the indigenous population, and we have been here ever since.

By the way membership peaked at 3,650 in April 2009 and now stands at 1,600.

It’s been a fun journey but change is coming once again, more of which later.

In fact, it wasn’t a field full of cows that led to the formation of the club. Rather it was the fact that there were NO cows in the fields at all. Let me explain.

We (myself, Marianne and the dogs) have always been keen campers. Mostly packing our small tent, sleeping bags, walking boots and thermal clothing in the back of our Vauxhall Corsa, ambling around and arriving at campsites in the middle of nowhere. Whether it was the Mendips, Snowdonia, the Lakes, the Dales, the coast, the Isle of Skye……we went all over when we had time off from work.

But in 2001 disaster struck!

An outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease effectively shut down the countryside for a number of months and we were unable to explore or stay in the Great Outdoors. We found other things to keep us occupied but were itching to get back out there.

When the summer of 2002 came round we booked 2 weeks off work, packed the Corsa with our equipment and the dogs, and set off on our way, initially heading for the East Yorkshire coast at Cayton Bay near Scarborough. Where it proceeded to rain. And rain. And rain. Not just at night, but during the day too. We figured it could not last forever so headed inland to Osmotherley near Thirsk. But it did not stop and all our kit was soaking wet. And it is no fun in a small tent with wet dogs.

Anyway, to cut our story short, we headed West and tried camping near Hexham. Then we went to Dent in the Yorkshire Dales. But we never actually got to dry out. It was at Dent that we made the decision: if we were in a campervan, we would be (relatively) dry.

So over that Autumn and Winter we considered our options, and took out a bank loan. The trouble was, the more we looked into it, the more we realised that a decent campervan was WAY out of our price range. Which is when, in the classifieds at the back of one of the Motorhome magazines, we spotted something called a Mazda “Montague” Bongo. WTF, as the youth of today would say…….

They seemed remarkably cheap. You could get an unconverted low mileage van for about £5,000. Or pay another few grand and get a basic kitchen unit installed. But Wokingham was a fair old distance from where we lived, so we started to make some enquiries. Remember, this was the early days of the internet, and there were few forums, and no information about Mazda Bongos except a basic Wikipedia page and a Japanese owners club. So, we put out a request for information on the Motorhome bulletin board on Yahoo Groups: “Has anyone got any experience of Mazda Bongos?”

Remarkably, within a few days, a message came back from someone called David Elliott. He said he had one if we wanted to come and see it, and what’s more he was only about 20 miles away. We jumped at the chance.

David, who was in the process of setting up Wellhouse Leisure, was following in the footsteps of Wade Montague at 321Away, and had started to import Japanese MPVs to convert into campervans. The Ford Freda he showed us had only done 6,500 miles, had 8 seats, was in a distinctive British Racing Green and was ours for a remarkably low price. At the time Wellhouse did not have the facilities to install a kitchen unit, so this work was undertaken by a firm called AVA Leisure near Gatwick Airport.

On that fateful day in February 2003 when we went to pick up our pride and joy, Vaughan England, the owner of AVA, asked what I did for a living. I said I was a website designer in a government department. He mentioned in passing that I should set up a website for Mazda Bongos. “Why would I want to do that?” I asked. Vaughan replied “Because they are just about to become popular. Big time!”.

And so began an interesting experiment. At the time nobody had a clue about where to get spares. Were there many other owners out there? I designed a basic website, called it “Bongo Fury” after my favourite Fank Zappa album, learnt how to get a website on the front page of the search engines, and waited to see what would happen.

And happen it did, as you will find out in Part 2 of……..Dawn of the Bongonauts!