Rory and Ruan

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International Brigade in October 1937 to fight against General Franco’s Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War.

Whilst in Peterborough he lodged with a Mrs Garner of Rock Road and was great friends with the family of Mrs Barber of the same street. He wrote several letters to Mrs Barber, one sent from hospital in Albcate, Plaza del Altazona after being wounded in the arm at Teruel in December 1937. He wrote, “I only fired five shots, and I don’t think I hit anything, but Franco’s men got me.”

Another letter spoke of the amazing country, “We appear to be bang up against the sky, thousands of feet above sea level. Mountain tops are quite close, only two or three hundred feet away, usually immersed in clouds.”

On February 17th 1938, the day Harry died in Segura de los Baños, Mrs Barber received a letter dated 5th January. “We have had a hard time lately.” he wrote and added, “but I have enjoyed it,

Youth European MTB Champs

this is a wonderful army and the moral is very high.”

After his death the Clarion sections within the East Midlands area (especially Peterborough, Nottingham and Leicester) collected together and purchased the Harry Laws 50 mile Cup, which is still awarded each year to this day by the Peterborough based Fenland Clarion Cycling Club.

At the end of July, Ruan Vorster and Rory Ogilvie from West Lothian Clarion set off in the van, headed to Capriasca, Switzerland to race the Youth European MTB Championships. With a van packed to the brim the drive took twenty hours, spread across two days. Although tedious, the drive got more interesting as we went: we started on the same motorway as every other race trip, before English fields gradually gave way to Swiss mountains and tunnels. Arriving in Capriasca was a relief. Two days of driving was tough, especially with temperatures of nearly forty degrees celsius. We unpacked the main things like food, clothes and bikes into the hotel rooms and then went to bed to rest up for the week ahead.

The first day was registration and course practice. After setting up the gazebo amongst the other British teams, Terence, the team manager went to sign our team on, as we got our riding kit on to do our first laps. The course was nothing like anything we had raced in the UK. It was bone dry, technical, steep, and ridiculously dusty, but both of us loved the course and were excited to make an impact on the technical downhills. After completing 3 laps of the course in the extreme heat, we decided to head back to the hotel to rehydrate and get some food onboard ahead of the first race the next day.

The first race was the TT, which took place on a very short course that started with a steep climb, followed by an off camber descent and then some tight corners before the sprint to the finish line. For our warm up we found a shady spot and had wet cold towels wrapped around us to keep the body temperature down. The race was full gas as it was just over a minute, meaning that times were super tight, and any mistake could cost you. Unfortunately, we both had small issues in the TT which caused us to lose some time, dropping us down the rankings. Rory was extremely happy to come through as >> >> 1st Scottish rider in this event, which gave him a lot of hope for the coming races.

The next day was the team relay, which took place on the full XCO course. We decided on our order before registering, and first up was Ruan, who did well to move up from a start position of 91st, gradually picking off riders throughout the lap. Our teammate Lacey went second, and unfortunately didn’t have the best lap, and so it was up to Rory to make up some more places on the last lap, by which point the field was a little less congested, with less

“After completing 3 laps of the course in the extreme heat, we decided to head back to the hotel to rehydrate and get some food onboard ahead of the first race the next day.