Do you have what it takes to become Britain’s best caravanner? Do you have, for example, a caravan? Even if you do, you’re too late: 12 finalists – six couples – are already vying for the distinction.
Caravanner of the Year (BBC2) isn’t just a weird idea for a TV programme; it’s a weird idea for a thing. That may be why, despite the Caravan Club’s 108-year history and its one million-strong membership, no one’s ever thought of it until now. The difficulties of choosing a premier caravanning couple are immediately apparent: what are the metrics of good caravanning? Since when is it competitive?
One develops a renewed admiration for The Great British Bake Off, for the straightforward rigour of its assessment criteria, when you watch 12 caravanners enter a race to put up their awnings and make a cup of tea. As you might suppose, all awnings are different: the competition is open to motorhomes and vintage caravans. Keith and Angela don’t even own an awning; they have to be supplied with one. Lest you consider this a disadvantage, bear in mind that Keith spent the days leading up to the awning challenge colour-coding all the poles and rewriting the manufacturer’s instructions.
The man charged with ensuring a level playing field (literally; he carries a spirit level to measure the tilt of your caravan’s table) is Grenville Chamberlain, chairman of the Caravan Club. The awning, according to Grenville, is “the greatest source of aggravation” for caravanners. Divorce in a bag, they call it.
The awning challenge itself is a little confusing – it’s hard to tell who is and isn’t making headway, and it doesn’t help that the six couples contain between them two Alisons and two Davids. The Davids aren’t with the Alisons. One David, a caravan insurance assessor by trade, was teamed up with his 81-year-old mother Gwyneth.
A caravan-driving challenge might, you’d imagine, test the extent to which caravanners can engender ill-will in fellow road users, but this was an off-road affair, with lots of reversing, seemingly aimed at breaking spirits. Even Grenville approached his proposed hill climb with caution, brand-new caravan in tow.
“There’s a thousand quid’s worth of Wedgwood back there,” he said, spinning his front wheels and smashing up the back of his caravan. The hill test quietly disappeared from the exam. Grenville drove off defeated, towing, I’m guessing, about 825 quid’s worth of Wedgwood.
A challenge that involved reversing around a hay bale came with a twist: the judges wanted the wives behind the wheel (caravans and gender stereotypes are, it seems, still tightly affined). Angela turned the colour of her motorhome.
“I’ve never driven it,” she said. “I drive a Toyota Yaris.”
She finished with top marks and shaking hands. This was largely a programme about couples, and in spite of the frayed nerves and lost tempers occasioned by various reversing disasters, caravanning partnerships seem to be particularly contented and resilient. Except for David and his mum – they probably need a little time off from one another afterwards.
Three couples were eliminated ahead of next week’s final, which I imagine will include some kind of endurance test where they park the caravans inside a car wash and make all three couples play gin rummy all weekend. I won’t spoil it by telling you the results – suffice to say that one David and both Alisons were robbed.
The Bedfordshire police returned for a new series of 24 Hours in Police Custody (Channel 4), with a very topical problem on their hands. Fifteen refugees – including two children – have been found inside a locked, refrigerated lorry at Toddington services on the M1. And once again the programme wrung something understated and excellent out of a format – cops, plus lawbreakers, plus cameras – that traditionally indulges prurience.
The paranoia and misinformation surrounding the refugee crisis were displayed in microcosm. When the refugees became ill (carbon monoxide poisoning from the lorry, most likely), they were led away in surgical masks, a “serious viral incident” was declared and the custody suite quarantined. “This is, like, do you watch The Walking Dead, anyone?” said the custody sergeant.
Back at Toddington services, a farmer searched his adjacent land for more refugees, while speaking in unfortunate similes. “It’s like a rat – you see one rat, and they say there’s another half a dozen out there,” he said. “It’s the same with these immigrants. I mean, not that I’m calling them rats.”
And yet the resounding note was one of procedural patience and routine humanity. And the refugees got a chance to speak for themselves. The father of the two children described their 17 hours inside a refrigerated truck. “My urine turned to blood,” he said. “We saw death before our eyes.”
