I make no apologies this month for the fact that much of Acorn is given over to tributes to Mark Dawson, our competition secretary who lost his fight against cancer recently.

I have read and re-read these tributes but it has been difficult for me to add anything else to them that is different. Mark was a lovely guy, approachable, sensible and had a very calming manner when things got a bit heated at committee. He was quietly passionate about his sport.

He was also an Editor’s dream contributor. I always included Mark in my “naggy” emails to the other regulars, although knowing that Mark’s column would be one of the first sent to me each month and needed little or no editing. “Compost” was always witty, informative and interesting and one of the contributions I look forward to receiving.

I am going to miss my “Markie” emails and reading Compost every month.

You are one of a kind Mark.

The Summer Autotest Series is drawing to a close and at the time of writing this there are two more events to take place, 22nd July and Sunday 1st August. All the tests in the series have been very well supported. I am disappointed that I have been unable to make any of the events and it currently looks as though I will have to pass on the last 2 events also.

However Team Travers did make it out to Croydon Motorclub's Treasure Hunt which took place on Sunday 20th June (seems a long time ago now!). We met at Whyteleafe Football Club and started the morning with a civilised cup of coffee. The Treasure Hunt sheet was the usual mix of questions to answer on the way round the route, which we had to partially plot, and photo clues to look out for (cue the children’s powers of observation—why is it that 9 year old Ryan can’t find his school uniform hanging on his bedroom door and yet he spots a tricky to find padlocked gate!)

We finished back at the football club to a buffet lunch while the scores were calculated.

We had tied for 2nd place on points, but had a handicap applied as we had 4 people in the car and the other crew had only 3. So we took 3rd place. Our thanks to John Lloyd and the other Croydon crews who once again made us welcome.