Lousy Rotten 'B' lifestory

CAR and BIKE LIST, all owned by me for a period of time-
DEFINITELY NOT EXHAUSTIVE (or Chronological)

Wolseley Hornet Special. AMY 808 . Mazda (Seychelles)
Renault 19. Datsun 1200 (sey)
BMW 525 auto. Ford Escort 1100(sey)
Wolseley 1500. Viva S17.(sey)
Lancia HPE
BMW 735.
Vauxhall Velox L type.
Velox Pb. Bikes
VX 4/90 CTW547B. Norton 500 16H
Astra 1400 . BSA Bantam125
Ford 8 . AJS 500
Ford 10. Excelsior Manxman 500
Austin 7 GT1327 . Enfield 350
Austin 16. BSA C11
Zephyr 6 farnham estate. Numerous allsorts, Fanny B and
Zephyrs and Zodiacs (sev).884 DLE . Velocette KTT.
Fiats, 2500 and 1600 Honda XL125
Consuls Mks1 2 and 375. Greeves/BSA
Cortinas Mk1-2-3-4 and GT. R1- Jesus’s own!!-Christ that was Fast!
Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire. MZ
A/S Hurricane. Vintage James/Villiers
Standard 12 . Suzuki 400
Triumph Herald.
Triumph Vitesse DHC BSA ‘Blue Star’
Humber Hawks (2)
Rover 16
Triumph Gloria saloon. Climax lump, freewheel.
Rover 10 (freewheel) FKN 938
Ford 300E van! ROA166
Thames 15 vans (2) and numerous Transits (6)
Mercedes-Benz 300 SE auto lhd. God’s own car.
Austin A55
Jaguar Mk7 (3), Mk8 and MK9
Minis, numerous
Singer Vogue MHM395D
Rover 80 90 and Cyclops
Sunbeam Alpines
Triumph TR2
Triumph TR4 o/d surrey top
TR4 dhc
Triumph Vitesse.
Lotus Élan
Rover 2000
Aston Martin DB2/4 special “2 1/2 litre jag lump.
Marlin Roadster, with Fiat twin-cam.
Porsche 944 auto
Audi100. Numerous saloons and estates.
VW Passats. 1921cc- Numerous
Golfs. - Petrol and diesel, numerous (8?)
Citroen DS19 & ID19
Pallas
Marinas (3)!!one estate, one saloon and 1 haha coupe! Jumpin’ Jesus- what next?
MGB (3)
Morris Minors (several)
Allegro estate!! (Sorry Jesus –needs sometimes must!)
Reliant Scimitars (2)
Standard 8!!
Renault Dauphines, several
Renault 17
Peugeot trio diesel!!
Volvo 164 auto 3 litre. -God’s other car.
Cadillac Eldorado 4.9 auto. God’s ‘cruisin’ for crumpet’ car!
DaimlerXJ6 4.2 AON120K
Mitsubishi Pajero Manual turbo diesel
Opel (1938) held together in part by very thin rust!
Opel Ascona
Sunbeam Rapier‘fastback’
Riley Pathfinder
Vauxhall Royale plus several Cavaliers- the 2 litre Cav was okayish.



The Life Story of A Lousy Rotten Bastard. (Some say)
Chronicling Various Wild Love Affairs, and His Many Crass Life Decisions, the Trials, Tribulations and wonderful times too.
NB.I wouldn’t dream of using the ‘language’ written here in a lady’s presence, so, apologies in advance- some of the following is Rude, but it made ME larf!

Chapter 1. My Ma and Pa, the Keilich cow etc. P4
Chapter 2. Secondary Modern Schooling, Gay Monty, Various gals etc P7
Chapter 3. Romford Tech, Some great guys, Muthers and bikes. P9
Chapter 4. The Idle Sonabitch. P11
Chapter 5. Cars, History, Comment on bastard cameras etc. P12
Chapter 5A. More motor crap. P13
Chapter 6. European Jaunts. P17
Chapter 7. Ideal Motors. P18
Chapter 8. P.C.Effin-Bastard Leech. P19
Chapter 9. Continental Service. P19
Chapter 9A. T&AVR Training, Tough Taff and his Bloodied Boots. P21
Chapter 10. Philips P24
Chapter 11. More Philips, and Lotus P25
Chapter 12. SHEILA .P27
Chapter 13. More SHEILA, The boot from Grundlick P28
Chapter 14. Seychelles. The Immigration Drongo. AND Sami Small too. P29
Chapter 15. Life in Seychelles. 1975-8. P31
Chapter 16. No god there, or anywhere, but I find utter paradise. P35
Chapter 17.
Chapter 18.
Chapter 19.
Chapter 20.
Chapter 21.
Chapter 22.
Chapter 23.
Chapter 24.







5 lines, (plus begging note,) of intro. Only!

There’s a book in everyone we’re told, -here’s my go at one. It will be effin’ rude in part. Most of the names are modified to give some degree of anonymity to the innocent, and avoid litigation from the guilty!
Maybe it’ll be funny too, couched in Public Bar/ Barracks Type English-, as she is spoke! Any publisher reading this, who would dare to print it, - I could sure use the dough!




Chapter1- My Ma and Pa. The Keilech Cow etc.

My dear old Pa, Edward Rodolph Capps, was born in 1891, and was 51 when I was born. He left school at 14 and worked in Aston, Birmingham, as a butcher’s boy. His pa was a cavalryman, present at Queen Victoria’s funeral. His fingers never straightened again after the many hours, motionless, holding the reins, that day. My pa was one big lad and no one messed with him then or ever. He went to Canada in 1913 (?) after borrowing £10, a considerable sum then, and joined the Mounties, the RCMP, famously being bawled at, in training, for posting the saddle, - ‘That fat man, sit down on that effing horse’. Nobody dared to say, ‘He isn’t fat, Sargeant, just big’. WW1 was raging when he was discharged, so he joined the Canadian Army and trained in Quebec and elsewhere. He came back to England via USA having probably deserted- details somewhat hazy. He wanted to get ‘stuck in’ and was fed up with ineffectually ‘stamping’ around, - every soldier’s main grouse. Subsequently he ended up in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He stopped a couple of bullets in France, and was also hospitalised with FUO (Fever of unknown origin). He saw plenty of action and was, reputedly, easily capable of dispatching two at a time over his shoulder on his bayonet. - No exaggeration, believe me.
In the twenties and thirties he rode speedway at the Sun track in Birmingham and was known as ‘Old Bill’. He had his share of successes on Rudges and Nortons, but all the riders were burned away by a fantastic American rider who won virtually everything.
He worked as a dock foreman in London after the war and married Miss Elsie Davies. (Photos indicate that she was no er oil painting, in fact ‘ugly’ is not an entirely inappropriate adjective!) They had no offspring and she died in 1940. There was a family of so-called ‘Hard Bastards,’ the Barts, who, for whatever reason had a raving ‘barney’ with dad. He threw his wallet on the ground and said, “There’s £40 in that wallet boys- if you can pick it up you can have it” Very wisely, they declined, and slunk away. No further difficulty with them! Dad was appointed, in 1940, by MINDELS, a government agency, as a meat expert, to sort serious problems with Glasgow’s notorious dockers. Evidently they were heaving sides of beef overboard into the dock and recovering them at night. It all stopped soon after his arrival- he was not only a big, tough, fearless man, but a truly cultured, fine mannered, gentleman, despite briefly living in East Ham!
In 1941 Dad, now 50, met and married my saintly Mother, Dorothy, who was 30 (!) years his junior and exceptionally pretty. I was born in Glasgow in December ‘42. We then lived in a sizeable house called ‘Meadow Croft’ in Moor Lane, Cranham, Essex with my maternal grandparents and my much loved uncle Derrick and Aunt Joyce, who lived in one of the nearby cottages, until I was nearly 4. ‘Meadowcroft’ was demolished and the site returned to agriculture until2004/5 when some plank decided to make the area into an area of scrub, laughingly referred to as a people’s forest. As it’s only a half mile from M25 it is no real loss, but still a fairly decent homesite.
Dad bought a house in Branfill Road, Upminster, Essex, and, at 4 ¾, I started at the Bell school. I clearly remember us all chanting our ‘times’ tables, - so easy to learn and never forgotten, of course, or the daily list of spellings to master, and taking turns to read aloud. All these, oh so obvious, ways of learning were shot down by those imbecilic ‘educationalists’ who, until 2006 (!) held sway and produced an under class of ill-educated but blameless ‘thickies’, - largely illiterate and innumerate. Labour party voting fodder, eh? I’m sure all ‘good’ teachers know how to overcome this ineffectual methodology and bright kids will succeed as always, aided by concerned parents. What a bloody waste! -Kids wandering around doing their pointless ‘topics’ and ‘projects’, at least half of them with their backs permanently towards, not only the redundant blackboard, but the so called ‘learning facilitator’ (teacher) too. ‘Child-centred’ education, they call it. The prats behind it all need a damn good kicking. They’re away now, living comfortably, retired, on their spectacular pensions, having created utter chaos in schools everywhere. This mess, of course, is still championed by the P.C. mob, who in turn need a damn good kicking.
There was a damned old cow called Keilech, at the Bell School, Upminster, who terrorised us. She ‘taught’ music and made each of us sing solo- every normal small boys’ mortal horror. We all hated that old sow, and I had the enormous pleasure of being able to tell her so many years later, in ’73.
When she was ‘Dinner’ teacher, nobody was allowed to leave any food, on the basis that it shouldn’t have been taken in the first place. She stood poised over the empty swill bin, which was just below her on the stage. It was us the monitors’, job to take the stacked plates back, and I made my charges eat the lot, or else. Poor Beryl Green wasn’t so lucky and she crushed some scraps in her plate stack. One of the dumpy fat-arsed cooks promptly reported this enormous crime, and Bloody Keilech went ballistic. ‘No-one leaves until I find who squashed the dinners, or you’ll all be back here at hometime!’ Blah blah. Beryl turned ghostly white, finally stood up and waveringly confessed ‘Please Miss Keilech, it was I who squashed the dinners.’ Keilech was purple with fury and dragged her out of the hall for summary execution. Well, not quite, but she would have done if she could. A true bully, -vicious and nasty. Damned old sow.
With Penny Brider, Richard Shail, Chris Day and Clive Morris, I was always in the school athletics team. I was handy at long jump, 100 yards, high jump, cricket ball, etc. ‘My’ lovely Penny was brilliant of course, seldom beaten. What a glorious kid! Surprisingly, we boys often played mixed rounders, despite it being perceived as a girls’ game, which I greatly enjoyed - it’s only a variation on baseball after all. My dad was known as ‘The Heavy Hitter’ in Canada, and I like to think I followed him in that.
At that age, about 10, little boys have no real conception of what ‘crumpet’ is all about, but I ‘loved’ Penny Brider. She was a remarkably pretty girl and a ‘fast runner’-crucial in those childishly competitive times. We used to throw scraps of paper with ‘I love you’ scribbled on them to one another. Nothing was more important, and the games of ‘Chain He’ were eagerly looked forward to, because we broke off into just pairs, HOLDING HANDS, in public, -so daring! One ‘hometime’ Penny said, “Wait in the cloakroom- make love!! Of course, I had no inkling what the hell she meant, having never heard the expression before. At last everyone had gone and I stood in the deserted cloakroom wondering quite what to do. She walked up slowly towards me, and then leapt at me, planting a kiss firmly on my amazed mouth and fled. I raced after her, but she was gone, out onto the vast pavement outside the school- (gone, it’s now a bank). The following year, still nuts about Penny, (probably always will be, too) someone said she had just been seen holding hands on the school field with Stuart bastard Glastock. A year older than me, but a runt, albeit an athletic one. Tears welled up- I was floored. My Penny? Lost- gone, taken by a maggot like bloody Glastock. The delicious Celia Mabbs became No1 object of desire after that, but she evidently ‘fancied’ a kid called Tilbury, - another useless plank. I snatched a few not very reluctant kisses over the last term. Years later I saw her again, chubby, NHS glasses, short, - utterly different. Tilbury was more than welcome to that, but I guess he ran for it too!
I made the school football team only twice, and almost scored both times. It was apparent I wasn’t much of a footballer, but I could hit a mean cricket ball, and dropped a humdinger six at my dad’s feet in one school match. I boxed of course. Mr. Brett was in charge and there were at least two inter school tournaments in which I took part. I won both times and received a considerable compliment from the ABA ‘personality’ giving the prizes. Dad was chuffed to bits and I still have his program with the wins annoted.
Years later, after we had all left the Bell, I asked everyone I knew in Upminster what had happened to Penny B. Someone said she’d married an older man, but I’ve never seen or heard about her since then. Sad. Many years later still, I did come across her doppelgangers-twice! Drama- and marital disaster- to follow!

Chapter 2- Secondary Modern Schooling, Gay Monty!! Various Gals etc.

Today, no child, however thick or stupid, is to be called a ‘failure’, just a victim of ‘delayed success’. What bollocks. With many others, I failed the 11+ and went to Gaynes Secondary Modern School. Its contribution to the country’s economy was to produce an endless army of spade wielders, barrow pushers and rose pruners from its ‘Garden’. They had us doing double digging, forcing rhubarb and generally poncing about in the garden. It was obvious; there was no future for me in bloody gardening. I had to get the hell outa there, tout de suite!
Amazingly, there were some damn good teachers there, and our curriculum included the first ever French course at Gaynes. A visiting genius teacher, in just one 40-minute lesson, taught us, the ‘lost cause,’ thick bastards, BINARY numbers in 1954 (!)- This is the numerical system essential for computer operation. Even now, I can easily teach binaries to anyone from that single, brilliantly taught, lesson. In the second year our Class Mistress was a fearsome wrinkly old dragon called Miss Jackson. She scared the crap out of all of us, except the usual bunch of brown nosed goody-goodies. However, she was a good teacher, and taught us high level English (for the year).
Another teacher, a delightful soul called Miss Seaton, taught us French, and had us er ‘singing’ French songs- Mon Ane; Marlbrook s’en va-t-en guerre; Mon soulier; Le furet. Etc. She was wonderful, quite unlike the ‘lady dog’ Keilech. Damned old cow. On my last day at Gaynes, only Miss Seaton was kind enough to wish good luck to the very few of us moving on to Technical or Grammar schools. (‘Late developers’ had a second crack at 13+ and, oh joy, I passed.) Crystal voiced Julia Farnorth recited some magnificent prose, including the phrase, ‘To circumnavigate the meta tarsus etc’- (all I remember of it!) to the final assembly. Few, if any, of the nascent gardeners understood a word of it. Such perfection of diction, language and speech at Julia’s level was beyond the capacity of most of us, certainly them. Julia had passed the 13+ too, unsurprisingly.
I was really nuts about Susan Pape, fluent in French, beautiful and accomplished even at age12! We used to have a proper kiss each hometime just round the corner from her house in ‘The Grove.’ Years later she was Hornchurch’s Carnival Queen and I got a very special smile and wave, sweet and demure, -big bloody deal; it’s crumpet that keeps the world rotating, not regal waves, but Christ, she was gorgeous.
There was another saving grace at Gaynes for me; her name was Betty-Ann Marjoram.
Full of beans, pretty as a picture, lithe, athletic and a year older than me. We swapped the inevitable notes for two years. She lived 6 miles away at Childerditch. Her brother and I got along very well. We had air guns and stalked the woods, missing everything, - real ‘Just William’ stuff. Betty-Ann and I used to borrow ponies called Faith and Cottonsox and I rode the leafy bridleways with her. Not that I ever even so much as kissed her, she was more a dream girl than a physical being.
Being all fired up, horse wise, my dad bought me a sweet-natured cob that I called ‘Khyber Prince 2,’ 14-3, black with a blaze. Dad rode him as much as I did, covering big distances, and no doubt reliving his month long rides into the wilds of Canada. I often also rode ‘God’s Own Charger’, belonging to one of dad’s local butcher pals. He was 17-3, magnificent and absolutely regal, and rejoiced in the name of ‘Gay Monty’. Such a name, today, would be highly inappropriate for such a perfect animal. (The fucking ‘Homo’ lobby has purloined the word ‘Gay’. - Look, they’re just fucking queers, and ‘queer’ IS the right adjective! - Messing about with blokes’ ‘jacksies’ just ain’t normal or healthy!) Monty was as fine a horse as ever lived; he flew effortlessly over 5 barred gates, and wouldn’t voluntarily slow crossing ploughed fields. He was truly splendid, stunningly powerful, and we covered many flying miles as one. I have an unexplainable affinity with all horses, (except for one sadly beaten old soul pulling a sleigh in Zakopane, Poland- couldn’t get through to him,) but Monty was my equine soul mate. I begged Dad to buy him for me but someone else bought him first, the bastard. Bucephalus reborn, what a horse!
About this time it was apparent that my mum was becoming very ill. She had what was then called ‘Disseminated Sclerosis’, which was degenerative. Dad and I had tough times helping her upstairs and she endlessly tried to go out and just ‘live’. Poor sweet soul, she died in 1964, a mere 44 years old. It’s true that the good die young. So where were you, Jesus?
Towards the end of the 2 years at Gaynes I contracted Polio and was in isolation in Rush Green Hospital for some weeks. Poor old Dad and Mum went through hell worrying about me. Apart from a few boils and some anaemia, I recovered completely, and, having mercifully passed the 13+ and the obligatory interview into Romford Tech was away from Gaynes, the poxy garden, - and Messrs. Croot and Roscoe too, the bloody slave drivers!
I had joined the Scouts at 11 and stayed with the troop, - the 1st Cranham (All Saints) (Few, if any, were saints!) through the Seniors, and even achieved Queen’s Scout, of which I was, and still am, very proud. Presentation was by the Chief Scout at Gilwell, - Scouting’s ‘Holy of Holies’. Shame I didn’t live up to those heady ideals in later life. Indeed I became a considerable bastard. Read on!
I sat near a very pretty girl called Marion Ghost at Gaynes and, being nuts about her, as usual, was delighted that she too was going to Romford Tech. As with Betty-Ann there was never any contact- story of my bloody life –and later I ended up nuts about ‘Muffin
Hughes’. Why Muffin? -We couldn’t just call her ‘Crumpet’ could we? At least there was some innocent groping and snogging which, whilst many years short of my first Jig a Jig, was, thank Christ, a start towards it. Her folks seemed to like, or at least, tolerate me and I spent many happy evenings at their house. Mickey Towse ended up with her and Marion Ghost too, the bastard, while I carried on fancying almost every thing in a skirt- as you do. At Gaynes there was a desperately rough, ‘common’, chubby little girl called Vera Larris. Unbelievably, in the middle of a firespitting Jackson English class, she suddenly blurted out, “Naah look wot I bin an’ gorn an’ dun”, we all collapsed in laughter of course. Years later I went to St. Laurence’s Youth Club in Upminster and was staggered to find Vera L, barely recognisable! Now free of puppy fat and absolutely gorgeous. Her diction was excellent. What a spectacular change! - Proof that there’s hope for the ugliest duckling!
The list of gals I was nuts about is endless and boring, principally because I never ‘got anywhere’ much then, just too bloody young, although the occasional date produced some big surprises! Phew, Pamela ‘X’ was a great sport, I daresay she later ‘helped’ half of Cranham’s boys undo their first bra strap and stretch some real knicker elastic, certainly gave me a damn good start! One day in the woods, with Pamela straddling me, enlightenment struck! It was short of proper jig a jig but the net result was much the same. ‘Acute premature ejaculation’ best describes it. Nice one Pam.
The Girl Guides that we knew were too well chaperoned for much in the way of hanky-panky and not many of them were particularly tasty. Then and now, only sick bastards are into ‘mercy’ jig a jigs, although Christ knows it must be better than ‘old widow five fingers’! Into this mix of gals I should include Marion S, Judith W, Linda, Paulette and numerous others. My great goddess, other than Penny, was Geraldine May. She was truly beautiful, a choirgirl with a voice of angelic clarity. I worshipped her, and just to be near her, grabbing any chance of becoming her boyfriend, I went to goddam Confirmation Classes. Yep, me, Mr. Cynical Unbeliever, temporarily swallowed all that unadulterated superstitious twaddle that all religions invariably are, just to get near Geraldine. I had arranged to walk her home after class one night, and there she was, waiting for ME, when Mr.F.Bastard- Halitosis called me back for a word, and some special insight into the Te Deum. He spent about 40 minutes breathing his skunks- arse fart breath on me. Gorgeous Geraldine waited for a while but had to go home. I could have booted that pious sonofabitch. After confirmation I tried everything to get pally with her again, but the moment had passed, -sod that bloody bugger.


Chapter 3- Romford Tech- Some Great Guys, Some ‘Muthers’ and Bikes!

Romford Tech was as much vocational as academic, but no time was wasted. There was woodwork and metalwork, of course, Chemistry and Physics labs etc. and an excellent curriculum. I went into 3R with a weedy little prick of a teacher called Nunn. I had heard that there was to be, for the first time ever, a German language course starting that very week. I asked this skull-like spindle if I could be allowed to start German with the other third year forms. Little bastard’s reply was, “We don’t want any complications in YOUR timetable”. This is why my German is ‘ski’ grade only. Some teachers are rats’ arseholes. An off the cuff put-down, from an uncaring ‘Christian’ prat like Nunn, can have lifelong ramifications. Leaving me with not much more than“Ski Heil, Kunten sie mir bitte helfen? Du bist so shon. Ich nicht verstehen. Ich bin Englander. Wilst du geschlafen mit?” SLAP! Auf weidersehen, - Nunn, I hope your bollocks festered!
There were some great boys (and gals) in 3R, and a few absolute bastards. I often wonder how they all did. Terry went into the print and prospered, inevitably. Chris became perhaps the finest Police driver in Britain, - Inspector in charge of Essex Police Driving School- believe me, those guys can really handle, - and he, Chris, taught the teachers! (I had a session there- wow- that’s driving boy! -120 on country roads-oh yes! Voom voom). Peezing past the friggin’ road clag at almost incredible speed- half the twonks we peezed past probably were unaware they’d just been burned off! Frank joined the ‘Merch’ and sailed the 7. Pete became a player in British rail and a borough councillor, (he was a lefty labour type and talked abject nonsense, as Christ knows they all do, but successful. - A genuinely nice guy, - however misguided!) Paul Abrams I saw working in a shop in Brentwood. Apart from those few, what happened to all the others is a mystery.
One lunchtime, Frank and a swarthy, slimy little twat called Weallans were larking around when Weallans pulled out a knife and went for him. He was slashing away at Frank who was able, fortunately, to avoid being stabbed, but had cuts on his hands. I helped restrain the prick until prefects arrived and lifted him bodily to the Head's office. Bastard Weallans, who I had always regarded as little more than a whore’s bum clinker, received 8 well-deserved strokes and was expelled. - “Knife Boy Expelled from School,” roared the headline. Good riddance. He was, and probably still is, a nasty vicious little shit. His equally greasy slimeball sonabitch ‘buddy’ was called Spencer. I’m glad I’ve never seen either of them since.
‘3R’ year, Sept 56 –Sept 57 flew by, so too did 4G (ii) with the dreary round of homework, detentions, bollockings and tussles with overbearing snot-gobbling prefects. One of the the worst was a lanky pig’s arsehole called Vancent -probably a dole office assistant or a clerk in a V.D. clinic now! They had a habit of making everyone scrape the corridor walls by severely restricting the available space in which to pass. If you came into contact with one of them, which was almost unavoidable short of skipping along sideways, it was a ‘Prefect’s detention’. Well, I nudged one, and the crap hit the fan. The arsehole screeched “Capps-Detention!” In trouble now! Fuck it! I simply walked at my normal width through the next two of these silly buggers, who bounced like skittles out of my bloody way! I got a second ‘prefects’ detto, but the bastards gave us all much more space after that. Over zealous enforcement of nonsensical rules breeds dissent- and revolution!
The Fifth was my year. I started to really get it together and was almost invariably top in the weekly tests. Each subject teacher gave us an exam every week and the results were collated and read to the assembled school on Monday morning. Mr. Werner very kindly gave me extra handwritten French translations to do during the holidays, and I subsequently doddled the ‘O’ level with a high pass. Another wonderful teacher was ‘Jogafy’ Jim. Amongst the most pleasant people I have ever met, he had a certain military bearing and an extraordinarily friendly demeanour. I later met him, by pure chance, with my two elder sons at ‘King Arthur’s stone’ on the Gower in ‘82. He was living near Winchester then. I have heard he’s passed on now. A true gentleman.
Mr. Werner asked me, out of the blue, if I would care to leave 5R and go into 5A, the ‘Racing to A levels’ form, as I was doing so well. He’d obviously cleared it with Goofy (the Head), but due to my utter crass stupidity, I thanked him and said I would rather stay with my friends in 5R. What a fucking IDIOT! What a prick! I kicked myself for years over that, and still do. Stupid imbecilic twat! Utter fucking cretin!
I did a year in the sixth and left in summer 1960. During that last term we had a king-size bollocking re our Motor bikes. My Excelsior Manxman grand prix bike of about 1936 vintage was barely, indeed hardly, road legal. Chris had a BSA 350; Ginger had a DOT trials bike. There were one or two others. The hierarchy just had to stop us riding to school, so motorbikes were suddenly verboten. Not long before that, I had taken Muffin Hughes back to Upminster on the Manxman. She had never ridden pillion before and tried to keep her luscious, bouncy body vertical on the bends. This is definitely not good! The Manxman, a living, breathing, beautiful, engineering masterpiece was pretty pissed off too, I guess, and bathed our legs in oil spatter – fair retribution. That, of course, was the end of Muffin. Frankly, at 16, motorbikes are far more rewarding than girls, so, bollocks to you, Muffin!
My Uncle Jack, dad’s brother, died and left me his as new, Bantam 125. A piece of toffee compared to a Manxman grand prix bike of course. We went to Leamington Spa to collect it and brought it home on the Austin’s luggage carrier. This overloaded the suspension and rendered the car’s (cable) brakes virtually useless. Dad reached Romford before the inevitable shunt. He nudged into the back of a car in traffic and the guy’s bumper fell off. “Why don’t you pick it up old boy, and be on your way?” He did too. That was how my Bantam arrived chez nous.
I lived on that bike; it did a clock 55 flat out, downhill, and popped its light bulbs for fun. A year or so later a chap in an Anglia 105E pulled out in front of me in Hornchurch and the Bantam was destroyed. A ‘handy’ copper said, “The cause of this accident was the motorcyclist going too fast” a strong voice in the crowd said not on your bloody life officer, the kid (me) was certainly not speeding and the cause obviously was this guy pulling across the bloody road. Open your bloody eyes. Fortunately, the brain dead, bigoted, snot gobbling copper (a bastard Leach clone) did indeed change his not particularly incisive mind! We got just £35 from the other guy’s insurance. There was a rivet from the guy’s car hammered into my knee. It dropped out a few weeks later. Today you’d get thousands for something as trivial as that, for ‘trauma’ or similar.
I was a keen ‘shot’ but not much good, and used to go for pigeons and the occasional rabbit for the pot. I had little idea about cooking stuff, then or now, and suffered the runs accordingly. My gun was a beautiful Boswell hammerless double12bore, with damascened barrels. I put foam rubber at strategic points on the Bantam so that neither became scratched. Imagine riding around today with a shotgun on your Motorbike-you wouldn’t get far! They’ll shoot you dead for carrying a table leg, or for looking rather like someone else, or even being a little brown!
I was kicking around with a girl called Jane. Her Pa was a metropolitan police officer and I became a wannabee policeman. The interview was to have been in London one Thursday morning and I didn’t go! - Reason? - On the previous Tuesday, on my way home from one of the many dire jobs I had, I was buzzing along Suttons Avenue, Hornchurch, when a car came up from behind and sat literally inches from my back wheel. Deadly dangerous, so I speeded up slightly, to all of 35 mph, trying to get an inch or two away from the mob handed loonies in the car. You’re right; it was a car full of bastard sonabitches masquerading as policemen. I later found that same element in the force. They deliberately set out to harass youngsters, presumably to educate them as to just who, they think, rules the streets. I was nicked for doing35mph. I won the ‘Court’s sympathy’ and was fined £2, -plus license endorsement. My feeling then was: ‘If I might have to do things like that to young lads innocently riding home after a days work, they could shove their bastard police force where the soddin’ sun don’t shine’. Many years later I served as a ‘Special’ in Northampton, can’t explain quite why. Perhaps I really should have been a career copper! Fuck knows, at least I would have a fabulous pension now. (Chapters 4-7 follow in a few days)