I got so excited about getting the reconditioned magneto into my A10 a couple of weeks back (long story) that I recklessly entered it in a local classic show. Major error of judgement, there being no prize for ‘Best Rat’. Now, there are several advantages to putting your bike in a show as opposed to… Continue reading Best Rat
A Ghost Story for Christmas It was Angie – or ‘Angelique’ as she now styled herself – who first figured out that the old watch house on the Spit would make a great venue for a Christmas party. An early adapter to acid house, she loved beach parties in the summer and warehouse parties in… Continue reading The Watch House
A Ghost Story for Christmas When I was a kid, I made a list of things that scared me. Like a Desert Island Disks list, I got it down to seven: Spiders, especially the really big sod in the attic that my dad insisted on referring to as ‘Sam’.Velociraptor hide and seek.GhostsNuclear war.Being coated in… Continue reading The Museum of Everything
A Winter Solstice Story Despite several theories to the contrary, the priapic spirit that has in the last few years been seen at Stone Henge during the winter solstice was not, in fact, a druid. Accounts of the apparition vary, but common features suggest a tall, emaciated male figure, naked from the waist down and… Continue reading Blue Christmas
By the end of the 1950s, the public perception of motorcycling culture had radically altered in the wake of Brando, Dean and Elvis. Motorcycling was now no longer viewed as the gentleman’s sporting hobby it had been in the early part of the century, when machines were high performance and expensive; neither was it simply… Continue reading The Damned (Review)
Following on from my previous point about the lack of serious films covering any aspect of motorcycle racing, here is one of the good ones, if not the best. Once a Jolly Swagman is a 1949 British film about the rise, fall and redemption of a speedway champion played by a gorgeous 27-year-old Dirk Bogarde… Continue reading Once a Jolly Swagman (Review)
No Limit (1935) is a British musical comedy starring ‘The Lancashire Chaplin’, George Formby, much of it shot on location at the Isle of Man TT (the year Stanley Woods won the Senior for Moto Guzzi, after an epic battle with Jimmy Guthrie on his Norton). Unless you’re a big fan of Formby, it’s a… Continue reading No Limit (Review)
I can’t remember who went first, but I’m going to guess it was Mick. He was just that touch older than me, though we were in the same year at school (I was born early in the year, Mick late the year before). He started out with a Honda 50, the classic ‘Crunchie’, followed by… Continue reading My First Bike
Fast forward about ten years. Like most places in the mid-70s, my hometown was very tribal. The working-class kids were predominantly rockabillies and skins, the National Front having a strong presence. This pretty much covered the council estate I grew up on. The few ‘rebellious’ middle-class kids at school, on the other hand, were hanging… Continue reading Grebo Gurus (Finding the Scene)
Well, almost… I was five when I first felt the magic. It was a lazy summer Sunday and my parents and me were driving home from the seaside along the old Acle Straight in Dad’s twitchy Singer Vogue. I don’t remember the day, other than it was warm and sunny, but Dad was wound up.… Continue reading Born to Ride
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