It’s 1978 and we need a van ! .. we’re sick of using transits .. breaking down at 2am in the middle of ?? …. we got together with a crazy hippie ” Mad Dave ” who had found and old ambulance , Pab vetted the engine , in fact he rebuilt it … this is before he got into sound … some of the letters had come off the back of the ambulance leaving “bula” , Alan the driver at the time “peo” .. he hated that name .. suggested getting airplane seats in the back and Steve drums talked about putting in a partition to keep the gear from coming forward and killing us all.
Traveling up to Scotland on boxing day maybe 1980 we went into a skid and everything changed to slow motion as we spun around and around until we flipped on to the side and ground to a halt in the outside lane of the M6 just south of Lancaster.. Luckily there was no one else around and … what a fantastic idea to put a partition in .. probably saved a few skulls and other bits from being crushed by martin bins and mid range PA speakers that needed a minimum of two people to carry … I remember Pab saying don’t panic but I can smell petrol ! we all got out ….. fast … no one was hurt.
Bula lay at Lancaster services until we could get up there to collect the gear , that was the end of that .. it was scrapped
The Police didn’t think much of “Bula” .. we were stopped and the “sarg” would say I’ll rip the thing to pieces and “I will find something” ….. he didn’t like us or bula
P.M
Dick Smith Band 