Bill your bang on about the line all the way round. I spent the entire month on the island, for both the TT and the MGP. unimaginable today but the road surface all the way round was just sprayed tar and chippings, unheard of on a public road today.

66 the year of the boat strike was stinking hot T.T, we don't seem to get the very hot summers like that now, Melting Tar at Sulby!! etc etc, warning boards at the start of races was the norm, of course the road was well lubed up with lashings of oil from drip feed primary chain oilers and exposed oil fed cam boxes, holes punched in screens and shattered goggle lenses from flying loose chippings just added to the excitement.

Pete Welfare and Ralph Grew and others did a roaring trade in replacement screens

I went to the TT in 66 with Albert Moule and Pat walsh, I was doing the Manx the fortnight following and Pat was staying to help me and Albert to do his travelling Marshall bit.

At the end of the TT there was a continuous ribbon of black smooth sticky tar all round the course, absolutely perfect for riders in the 'AMATEUR' Manx Grand Prix to get the right line from the trail left by the experts, I clearly remember it been bought to the attention of newcomers in particular. getting it of the bike, boots and leathers with petrol took ages.

Never in the world would you have been able to race modern bikes on the TT course then, the place is almost like the M25 now and as smooth as a babys bottom like a billiard table by comparison.

If your look at the photographs on Ian Huntleys posting of the 1947 TT some of them must have been taken TT week because you can clearly see black tracks, yep that's from melting tar.

It has been mentioned about spectator numbers, by Charlie Hulse and others, there were spectators bikes parked side by side, wheels to the curb in front of the hotels from the harbour, including Douglas sea front itself almost to the old Douglas Bay Hotel, every back street and alley was jammed with bikes. Not a bed to be found in spite of the amazing number of hotels and boarding houses that existed in those days.

But times change in those days it was a big family affair to go to the TT Mothers Fathers, kids, aunts, uncles and Grandparents. The TT also had a tremendous amount of support from mainland national and regional newspapers, I have copy of a 68 Manchester evening news broaddsheet with two full pages of practice photographs of starters in the the following days 125 and the Senior races on the 125 page is Gary Dickinson John Kiddie, Les Isles. myself and half a dozen others, buy todays Daily Mail once a great supporter of the T.T and the TT does not get a mention.

The island could never accomadate such numbers today

The queues of bikes waiting for ferries stretching from the docks almost to the Liverool Liver Building all day and all night, you could stand at Guthries and there would not be an inch of room and the banks as far as the eye could see down to the Bungalow and round the Verandah to the Black Hut. The seagulls were a serious problem on that part of the course because of their scavenging.

Truly an amazing times.