Snowy Tales- Conspiracy 1981

In the winter of 1980/1 I was living in Northampton, working for Superdrug by day and playing in a band called Conspiracy by night. The band had formed in 1975 when I’d tired of playing rock music for no reward with Left Hand Drive. I started looking around for musicians and met Derek Scarr and we decided to advertise for a drummer. Mark Bryan joined us soon afterwards. We began rehearsing in a wooden village hall in Cogenhoe and it soon became apparent that we needed a lead guitarist so we recruited Andy Keightley and began gigging soon afterwards. After a year or so Derek left when he was transferred to Torbay and Andy’s brother Phil joined on bass. As he’d never played bass before we decided to beef up the sound by adding another guitarist and Dave Anderson joined. After some months Andy and Phil left and moved to London to set up a business and we recruited Nick Evans on bass. Nick, Dave and Mark had all played together in Campbell’s Country a few years earlier and Dave tried to turn us into a country act. Mark didn’t want to know and so we decided on a change of strategy and recruited Mark’s sister Karla. We began rehearsing without telling Dave and he left after some heated words (not surprisingly!) The new band was Mark on drums and lead vocals, Nick on bass and vocals, Karla on vocals and keyboards, and myself on guitar, mandolin and vocals. Andy returned from London in late 1979 and Nick decided to leave the band and join Andy in a new group. We advertised and recruited Tony Harrison, who stayed with us for about 9 months. It was while Tony was with us that this tale I’m about to recount took place. The band had been booked to play the Woodbine Club in Raunds. We used to enjoy playing there and on this occasion it was snowing when I set off from my home in Abington, Northampton to drive to Earls Barton to meet Mark. I picked up Tony on the way and all three of us got in the van to drive up to Kettering to pick up Karla. By this time the snow was getting heavy and staring to drift but we drove from Kettering down the A6 and over the river. The A45 expressway hadn’t been built at that time so we drove through Stanwick and arrived at the venue in good time. The weather was looking very bad and the roads were becoming impassable but we unloaded and set up. There were no mobile phones at that time and information was patchy but after we played the first set to a sparse audience the entertainment secretary decided to curtail the evening and try and get everyone home. We’d heard that three of the four roads out of Raunds were blocked and the only way out was via Stanwick, but even that was uncertain. We loaded up and set off. It was about ten o’clock as we slipped and slid up Marshalls Road to head back home. The road to Stanwick was drifting but passable with care. We dropped down into the village and headed out towards Higham Ferrers. We rounded a bend to find a snowdrift completely blocking the road. It was about knee deep and extended for about fifty yards. We’d packed a couple of spades and so tried to dig our way through without any luck. There was just too much snow. We sat there in the darkness, unable to go forwards or back. Then out of the blue, a tractor with a bucket scoop appeared out of the darkness. At that time the County Council had arrangements in place with local farmers to keep the roads clear. He set to work and soon had a way clear. We followed behind him as he dug his way through the drifts out to the A6 just outside Higham. We set off up the hill only to come to a halt. Mark had stuffed some cardboard in the radiator grill in the mistaken belief that this would stop the engine from freezing. It had the opposite effect. The radiator was boiling. We stopped, knocked on a nearby door and persuaded the occupants to give us some water for the radiator. At last we were underway. We drove through Higham and out to the dual carriageway at Rushden lakes. From then it was fairly easy going back to Earls Barton. At about 1.30 Tony and I got into my mark3 Cortina for the drive along the A45 dual carriageway to Northampton. The roads were empty and the snow was about six inches deep and rutted where other vehicles had driven. I drove very slowly at first but eased the speed up as I wanted to get home. I was doing about 45-50 miles an hour when the wheels stuck in the snow tracks and I realised I’d lost control. I took my feet off the pedals and hope the car would slow down. As it did so it began to fishtail and spun around and off the carriageway, ending up backwards in a deep snow bank by the side of the Ecton Farm exit ramp. We got out and surveyed the scene. The car was hardly moving when we hit the snow and there was no damage so we pushed the car back onto the road, noting with relief that we’d missed all the Armco. I took it a lot slower as we drove to the Lumbertubs Way exit, and then crept along Lumbertubs Way. I dropped Tony off in Kettering Road and finally got home at around 2.30. After a few hours sleep I got into work at Superdrug in the Grosvenor Centre at about seven.