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Donegal man celebrates Mini
adventure
13.03.12
A DONEGAL man is
celebrating the 50th anniversary of an epic
adventure that saw him drive to the other side of
the world in his tiny Mini car. Alan Speer from
Letterkenny was joined in his 1962 odyssey by two
Belfast adventurers David Harvey and Peter Newman.
The intrepid explorers set off on their travels
after Newman, now deceased, placed an advert in a
Sunday newspaper the year before.
Alan, a young man working in the family hardware
store in Letterkenny, was itching to travel and
replied to the box number. |
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From left, David Harvey, Peter Newman
and Alan Speer, pictured on their Mini Adventure in
1962. |
The trio captured it
all on film. Their 14,000-mile 'Mini Adventure' from
the hills of Donegal to downtown Singapore via
Afghanistan and India, will now be shown in a
documentary next week. Producer David Lamrock of
MGTV said the men set off for the other side of the
world with just maps, a few spare parts and a change
of clothes. The documentary shows how they survived
for four months in a Mini in the days before sat-nav,
GPS and mobile phones. "It’s fantastic that we’ve
got Alan’s archive footage as it gives viewers a
remarkable insight of what the world looked like 50
years ago through the eyes of three young local lads
and how exotic and mysterious those locations and
the people must have appeared like in 1962," said Mr
Lamrock. 'A Mini Adventure' can be seen on BBC One
Northern Ireland on Monday, March 19, at 10.35pm. |
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