Memorable Motorcycles

You might be forgiven for forgetting old sweethearts. The face of someone you swore once to cherish forever may dim with the mists of time. But you won't forget another love - your first motorbike.

I've discovered, by talking to some Penshurst men, each with his own distinctive 'motorbike history' just how much their bike influenced their lives.

It's not surprising, is it? Even as a young girl I can remember the amazing exhilaration of riding behind my older brother Alan on his Triumph. Now I can't be expected to remember what kind it was, but it was very big and noisy and was a metallic blue. We raced over open paddocks, through back-streets and, finally, after he got his licence, along the highways. This particular machine finally came to grief, with brother on board, smashing through the plate glass window of the local fruiterer. Brother Alan escaped to ride again, covered in squashed tomatoes.

Of our four selected ex-bikers, one is far from over it and I suspect you can tell from the story below just which one he is. The other three, young and short of cash, took their first bikes out onto the roads of overseas countries.

Perhaps readers may have a pile of rusting metal taking up space in the backyard shed. Is it just sentimental junk or could it be there just waiting for a bit of time and a few spare parts? Whatever the story, it seems that riders remember with considerable joy their first bike.

Here Alan Gee's story (uploaded 22/12/00; we have no image of Alan Gee on his first motorcycle, so try to 'spot' Alan in this picture of the Gees' Christmas decoration in 1999)

ALAN GEE
Alan's been around motors - not just bikes - most of his life and has built up considerable skills in this direction. Perhaps necessity is the mother of invention, and this seems to be true in Alan's case. Where the capacity to just go in and buy something is limited you learn to be very creative. Today Alan lives in Penshurst with his wife Ann. Here's Alan's story:
I acquired my first motorcycle at the age of about thirteen. Where I got it from I can't remember, but it was a 350cc O.K. Supreme of about l929 vintage. It came in four cardboard boxes and about 500 pieces. I well remember taking it up into the attic of our house and painting the frame bright blue. That was as far as I ever got, and I have not the slightest idea how many years it was up there, or what eventually happened to it.
My first usable machine was purchased at age sixteen. I had started my apprenticeship and worked on the second floor of a machine shop where, from the window, I spied in the yard next door a tarpaulin which was covering something which looked suspiciously like a motorcycle. My post office savings book at the time showed a balance of l5.5.0. Armed with this amount, I knocked on the door and inquired if the machine might be for sale. "I might sell it," said the chap, "but I couldn't take less than l5.O.O." 
Money and bike changed hands and as it had not run for some years, I had to push it all the way home. It was a l935cc Model H Norton.
The bike was immediately stripped, painted and overhauled mechanically, all of which took the next three months' wages. I think mum must have done without my board for that period.
At last the bike was on the road and gave good service for two years until I went into the army. Personal transport was not allowed until I got a permanent posting just outside London, and on one weekend leave I rode it back to camp from my home in the north of England. After that, it carried me home and back almost every weekend, a six to seven hour trip each way.
All went well until one weekend I traveled through the Friday night home, partied all Saturday night and set off back to London on Sunday night. After about 100 miles, I was so tired that I fell asleep and ran under the tailboard of a truck parked at the side of the road. I promptly woke up to find that I had bruising and some skin missing off my legs. My pal, who was asleep on the pillion, woke up by landing on his backside in the road. We managed to straighten the front forks enough to get going but had to make the rest of the journey without a headlight.
After proper repairs the bike gave me good service until I got a car, and I passed the bike down to my brother.
I have had other bikes since, but I remember my old Norton with great affection.

                Brian is the youngest of our bikers, growing up in the district. His keenly developed love of motorcycles has barely dimmed over past years as he happily recalls the thrill of racing and the delight of speed. Brian has made his home in Penshurst with wife Catherine and daughters Sarah (4) and Samantha (2). 

            I had no mishaps on my first bike, the Suzuki TS. It would be near impossible to get hurt on a bike that was so slow.

Arthur's story is one of motorcycle being a means of transport, a necessity of life. It is strange to hear him speak of the luxury of motorbikes. Even so, among the ups and downs (litera1ly) of his riding experience, I can detect a fondness for this most useful of machines. Anhur and his wife Barbara and no motorbikes, live in Penshurst.

Life for me as a teenager in post war Liverpool didn't include the luxury of motorbikes. The only real difference from the war years was that the bombing had stopped. My first motorbike came when I was 27. By this time I had served in the Army and had sailed around the world several times. The bike was a 250cc BSA side valve and I paid 55 pound for it. This was about four weeks' wages at the time. It wasn't exactly an exotic piece of machinery, but I had a lot of fun on it. I used to love going to the mountain area of North Wales. One particular experience was a puncture. I took the wheel off to find the inner tube perished beyond repair. With the aid of a local farmer, we stuffed the tyre with straw. Then followed a nightmare ride home. Later, I had a 600cc SV Ariel and sidecar. By this time I had three children and we would go camping in North Wales for the weekend for less than one pound's worth of petrol.

The motorcycling bug bit again when I was in my early forties and I rode from Hobart via the Princess of Tasmania, to Perth. I returned with my bike on the India Pacific back to Port Augusta and on home.

Not long after returning to Hobart, I was involved in a collision with a car that tried to do a U-turn in front of me. I would be one of a very few to survive an accident of this kind when the car and the motorbike were write-offs.

My next, and final experience of motorbikes was a Yamaha trial-bike in New Guinea. Now this was real motorbike country. It was common to encounter natives with bows and arrows hanging in the wild and I had several experiences, both good and bad. After the Yamaha, I hung up my goggles and helmet. Now all I have are the memories and the scars to prove it.

            It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that, for Erik, growing up in his native Sweden, his first motorcycle was part of a rite of passage of young men of the period. Like others, he was keen to travel and see something of the world, some six or so years after the end of the war, but constrained by lack of money and the demands of education and army service. Perhaps he's now ready for his fourth motorbike. Erik is the husband of the writer who cannot imagine the lifestyle of this trendy-looking James Dean lookalike.

            I was sixteen when I got my first motorcycle. It was a World War two surplus, BSA 500cc side valve, l944 manufacture. It cost what I can only estimate to be about equivalent to $200 and was paid for by my father in lieu of wages for working in our market garden. He approved my having a motorcycle, because other young men had them.

            I rode it on both country roads and city streets. On Sunday mornings I occasionally rode in to town some 8km away, where it created a most enjoyable noise, backfiring downhill, with the silencer removed. In those days we wore wide black "kidney belts", because of the rough gravel roads, and the image of toughness they conveyed.

I soon found out that the old machine went rather well on a mixture of petrol and cheap "crystal oil", i.e. the solvent used in dry cleaning. This was of course illegal for taxation reasons, but may have saved me when I had an altercation with a turning vehicle, and the fuel drenched me but did not catch fire. However, the punishment was a chemical "burn", a couple of minutes of unconsciousness, concussion, and a fractured scapula.

            I understood how my bike worked and though I was never a member of a motorcycle club, I used to associate with two other young men and their bikes.

            I had to sell my bike when I became unemployed. The market garden was not doing well and I was too young to work in the local foundry.

The only choice was that of joining the "intelligence reserve", i.e. the army, where for a few days I had the use of a BSA 350cc, top valves. It could not be used in my main occupation of roaming the countryside with a 105mm howitzer (cannon) in tow. Back in civilian life, I subsequently bought a Matchless 500 cc, capable of 130km/h, although its poor frame alignment after a crash by the previous owner, made such "testing" inadvisable.

            Although I have good memories of my motorcycling days, I would not want my BSA back again as 50 years have since passed. 

Ed.:  The idea to this article came from the Veteran Motorcycle Club's recent visit to Kolor Homestead. We intend to upload the stories of the four Penshurst men as it relates to their motorbikes as a serial. It is relatively recent history, dating back to c:a 1950, but has local connotations and will be added to our digitalised  archive (a CD of all our largely monthly website contributions, incl. "Penshurst On Line", and montages of special events, can be ordered for $12 each. Proceeds will go to Mt. Rouse & District Historical Society).

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January 27, 2001

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