The Background

Andrew Jenkinson was born on the Fylde Coast on the outskirts of the famous seaside town of Blackpool. Andrew lived with his parents and elder brother and sister at their newsagent business in the then small village of Bispham. Early caravanning connections stemmed from his grandparents who in the early 50’s bought a Willerby touring caravan. Andrew has only vague recollections of his grandparent’s first tourer because due to his parents business, leisure time was limited.

In 1960 his grandparents traded the Willerby in for a brand new Sprite Musketeer. Again Andrew can just about remember the Sprite, by the time he was six the Sprite had been sold due to his grandparents being unable to use the van. Several years went by, and in that time Andrew had been given several caravan toys-the seeds had been sown!

After Andrews parents had sold and bought another business Andrews father moved into the Civil Service. With no business to run, family holidays were now back on the cards. After a disappointing bed & breakfast holiday in July 1969 Andrews parents took the plunge and bought a 1968 Sovereign touring caravan. This was then replaced with a 1969 Elddis Tornado. The bug had truly bitten and a new 14ft 1971 Elddis Cyclone was then bought, with just Andrew and his sister now to consider the Elddis proved the ideal tourer.

In was in this period, Andrews father began buying Caravan Magazine on a regular basis. Instead of the magazine being disposed of Andrew saved them, and started to take a strong interest in the Caravan Industry. On caravan dealer visits Andrew would come away with sales brochures. The collection had begun, and his knowledge was to expand to. Andrews father was to purchase several more tourers, a 1971 Welton Rosaleda , followed by a 1977 Elddis Tornado then a 1977 Elddis Mistral limited edition Silver Jubilee, this was then traded in for an Ace Emperor static.

Andrews caravan interest saw him apply to work in the industry at the Pemberton / Dovedale caravan manufacturing plant, Blackpool in 1974. With the then economic downturn the job fell through and Andrew went into the toy trade. In the mean time the caravan interest saw Andrew try his hand at designing tourers, which lead to several manufacturers taking an active interest in Andrews work. Several conducted tests and gave both critical and appraised comments. All this time Andrew was gathering more and more information. Other interests came along and a job promotion saw the designing come to an abrupt stop.

For a short time Andrews caravan interests took a back seat, but by late 1983 he began to rekindle his interest this time by looking at buying his own tourer, with his then future wife Jackie. This time the interest came back stronger, and Andrew began a search in earnest for archive material, over the next 17 years he travelled to all parts of the country to collect as much information as possible. He attended as many trade shows and national shows as he could, all the time picking up more information.

Andrew did eventually buy his own tourer in 1985 which was a 9 year old Ace Diplomat. He even spent his honeymoon in the Ace at his now all-time favourite Caravan Club site Low Park Wood in the South Lakes.

In 1987 he purchased his first new tourer, an ABI Marauder 400CT from then Dave Barron Caravans. This was to be the start of a long term friendship with Michael & David Hold the proprietors, where Andrew has since bought all his new tourers. His latest being a 1999 Bailey Ranger 500/5. It would be Michael Hold that saw Andrews talent and gave him the encouragement to pursue this interest. Michael has since now moved into joining the manufacturers Explorer Group, whilst David has however further expanded the retail business of Barrons.

	*Early photo of Andrews grandparents (On right) with a Thomson* tourer in the background with other caravanning friends photo around 1959**
	Andrew stood in January 1977 with his dads then new Elddis Tornado
	*Andrews very own first caravan, a 1976 Ace Diplomat, taken on a small CL site in East Yorkshire, 1985*
	*Latest outfit is a 1999 Bailey Ranger 500/5* and soon to be replaced Xantia 1.9td (Caravan Club site at Honiton, Devon)**

Andrew On Radio And TV

Andrew has appeared on TV for the Granada regional 'M6 Motorway' documentary and another time for national TV, again on the ' M6 Motorway', which has since been repeated. Andrew also recorded four ten-minute programmes for Radio Lancashire on buying a new caravan and used. He also did a twenty-minute interview with Andy Peebles on Radio Lancashire about his first book; 'Caravans from 1919-1959'. Andrew also did a report from the NEC centre in Birmingham for Radio Lancashire on the Caravan and Boat show, February, 2001. He also did an hour programme for BBC Radio GMR on caravanning.

His latest radio broadcast was with Simon Foy at Bay Radio, where he talked about his latest book on buying used caravans. Andrew also chatted with Simon about the general aspects of caravans and caravanning.

Andrews expertise was called for regarding BBC TV’s Blue Peter programme who were featuring touring caravans, and asked for some old photos. Also the producers used Andrews books as a reference for the programme.

Andrew has also done some brochure work, to his credit he did the text write up four years on the run till 2000 for Vanmaster Caravans. Andrew has also written the brochure write up for Barrons Great Outdoors and also the brochure photographs for JNC Tourers.

Andrew is getting more known in TV circles as he either stars in programmes concerning caravans or when it comes to consulting programme makers who need Andrews advice on caravans for period dramas. Andrew stared on BBC’s Country File series when virtually a whole half-hour was devoted to caravanning and camping. Andrew along with his wife Jackie and daughter Georgina talked to Mikela Strachan about the positive side of caravanning.

It was great to work with Mikela and the Country file team who were all surprised just how modern tourers have progressed since their early days.

The programme went out in mid June and proved a success, the whole scene which Andrew appeared in was shot at Andrews favourite Caravan Club site – Low Park Wood in South Cumbria. Andrew also helped the makers of BBC’s latest drama series Born and Bred set in the 1950’s find a caravan that would be suitable for one of the episodes to be shown in 2003. Andrew later signed two copies of his caravan history books for the makers of the programme and sold some of his cards to the production team!

Back in the last part of 2001, Andrew was contacted by the company who promotes that cartoon hero

Tin Tin whom were re launching Tin Tin products. One of the books called Black Island contained the scene of a caravan in it as part of the plot. Now the problem was they wanted to recreate this caravan along with towcar (Triumph Herald)-car no problem but the caravan? Andrews’s services were called upon and after some months the caravan was identified as an Eccles GT305 from 1962. Further e-mails from Belgium to the UK followed. Upshot is the model is now being manufactured and also Andrew wrote the information on the Eccles. A leaflet and model will be produced early 2003-when this is released it will appear on Jenkinsons Caravan World. Andrew also has teamed up with Bailey to produce in conjunction with a toy distributor a model/toy of a Bailey Wyoming 2003 caravan, now on sale and again it will make its appearance on Andrews web site.

Andrew is always looking for archive material, if you have any please e-mail