DRIVING FORWARD FOR FRIENDSHIP - MSJ OLD GIRL AND THE 'PANAMA TO ALASKA'
In 2005, Old Girl Charlotte Morrison and her husband Robin drove his 1970 Aston Martin 18,000 miles from London to Sydney as part of a global rally. The group of fifteen cars, twelve classics and three four wheel drives chose a route which was to maximise the amount of time spent on land rather than on water. They travelled through Europe to Istanbul, the full width of Turkey, southeast through Iran, south in Pakistan and then northeast through the same country to the Chinese border in the mountains. The rally then drove along the northern Silk Road to Xi’An and then southwest to the border with Laos. After that they progressed south down the Malay peninsula through Laos, Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore. The cars crossed to Darwin on a container ship and completed the journey to Sydney by driving south to Adelaide a along the great ocean road.
It was a magnificent achievement and one that also raised money for the charity Practical Action. This was founded in 1966, as ITDG (the Intermediate Technology Development Group), by the radical economist Dr EF Schumacher to prove that his philosophy of ‘Small is Beautiful’ could bring real and sustainable improvements to people’s lives. With Charlotte’s background in engineering it is easy to see why this technology driven charity would be of great interest to her. Charlotte read engineering at Girton College, Cambridge and gained a PhD at the University of Surrey. She went on to carry out research for the Ministry of Defence at Fulmer Research Institute, and for British Aerospace and Rolls Royce at Surrey University.
You may ask why Charlotte and Robin chose this journey – to which Charlotte responds ‘’Because the opportunity arose at exactly the right moment, because it was exciting (and it was), because we were able to go to places that we would never have visited otherwise but hope to visit again.... there are many reasons’’.
The excitement cannot be doubted as this year Charlotte and Robin are back on the road, this time taking part in the Panama to Alaska Friendship Rally. Charlotte will be sending regular postcards to the School to keep us all updated and also updating their website. If you would like to support Practical Action ad are interested in more information please log onto the following websites:
http://www.practicalaction.org http://www.robinandcharlotte.co.uk We wish Charlotte and Robin a safe and exciting journey and look forward to hearing from them along their travels – Good Luck!
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