Bongo Nights

Former journalist Richard Harris celebrated his retirement by embarking on what he called a “great daft adventure” in his small Bongo campervan - trying to spend one night a week in his van for 52 consecutive weeks. So all through the summer, autumn, winter and spring – through sun, rain, gales, ice and snow – he set off once a week in his ancient Bongo van. Just because he could. He kept it up every week – despite badly injuring his back (when he fell over inside the van) on one trip, and breaking his leg (when he slipped on a patch of wet grass) on another. “It started off just as a vague idea to occupy me in my retirement,” he says, “but that vague idea quickly grew into a mission and then an obsession. “I would never have guessed it would turn into such a marvellous, exciting and, at times, emotional adventure. “I ended up going to places I'd never dreamed of going, doing things I had never dreamed of doing and meeting people I'd never dreamed of meeting.”