one for the oldies!

Thanks for all the info. I thought it was 1976 but maybe 75. Right on all the things posted but Ned you were disqualified for biting the teat and had to do a forfeit. Can anyone name the lady? Wobblyman did make the DD’s a special even and will never be forgotten by a lot of racing folk. I seem to remember an Eastern centre coach to get us to the DD because we were never fit to drive home. But I can’t remember where the centre meetings were at that time. You can all blame Spider for these old photos as he asked me to find some old pics I said I had. I have found a load of old forgotten photos but not the ones you want yet spider. When (if) I find them you will be sent them. Ned I have one old (and dark) photo of you working on the bike with someone watching you and we can’t name him. More to follow.

Thanks for all the info. I thought it was 1976 but maybe 75. Right on all the things posted but Ned you were disqualified for biting the teat and had to do a forfeit. Can anyone name the lady? Wobblyman did make the DD’s a special even and will never be forgotten by a lot of racing folk. I seem to remember an Eastern centre coach to get us to the DD because we were never fit to drive home. But I can’t remember where the centre meetings were at that time. You can all blame Spider for these old photos as he asked me to find some old pics I said I had. I have found a load of old forgotten photos but not the ones you want yet spider. When (if) I find them you will be sent them. Ned I have one old (and dark) photo of you working on the bike with someone watching you and we can’t name him. More to follow.

This is getting too much. Cheesuzz Murphy! I am getting too worked up about the BRC and the past ... I´ll be building a Bantam and forging yet another birth certificate ....

At least the VMCC has a Wobbleyman Trophy which helps keep the memory of that `villain´, Wobbleyman alive. At times he was so bubbling-over that it was overbearing but he really kept the BRC committee humming.
Not to belittle Scrooge John Sawer, J brimble, D Bridges, Mary Styles, Colin Neil, P Rossiter,, Pat Plosky, Dick Hunter, Poddy Phillips, Mick Scutt and Toni Anne Aylyn ...
.. it was that he always had us rocking over something and he had a way of organising money-making events which helped towards our over-burdening costs...

I really couldn´t afford the time to practice & race much less take over a job on the BRC Committee but he got me to the Hoop & Grapes -- just as a visitor -- a couple of times before he swung the committee to have me as Chairman.

Also never forgotten was in the very early days of Colin´s Bantam racing how he persuaded me to give him and his grotty Bantam a lift to meetings. I say grotty because his Bantam -- in those early days -- was invariably not finished and he convinced me -- every time -- that it was my gentlemanly duty to help him get it ready for practice a short time before practice, of course! However, we had some well-fought Intermediate Class battles which are worthy of memory.

His sense of humour was infectous such that you´d be annoyed -- even angry -- with him for being late or as above, loading his bothers on you and he´d turn it around by saying something -- at the right time -- to have you laughing and liking him....

An example was my picking him and his Bantam up to go to Cadwell. It was a week after the block of flats -- Roan Point (was it??) -- at East Ham had to be evaucated because a gas explosion had a whole column of apartments collapse to the ground. Colin´s apartment was the block next door. We went on a Friday evening and at 5 mins before the agreed time I rang the bell and Colin´s missus let me in to sit and wait in their fifth floor apartment.
I waited and waited getting more and more angry... . An hour went by and I said I´m off but Pat gave me a cuppa and reckoned he´d not be long... So another half-hour went by ... He came in and didn´t apologise. After a cuppa tea he went and leant on the inner wall at the kitchen. Pat asked what the blazes did he think he was doing? and he replied with his usual cheeky grin, "Just wanted to tell John not to do this on the outside wall..." Whilst Pat was giving him some more verbal I burst out laughing. Colin joined in. Then so did Pat.

But he got really angry when Andy Boyle offered me his 250 ABS to race for him. We Eastern Centre BRC lads
had been invited to a pub in Brentwood for a MC film show and at the end Andy had come up and given me that news. I asked when could I have the ABS and Ándy said NOW.
Now just happened to be 21.00 hours (nine `o´ clock). Niffy kindly offered his trailer and we drove to Niffy´s mum´s in the East End, then back to Brentwood and I had the 250 ABS in my garage before midnight. The follow on was Colin getting himself a 250. He did it by gently convincing a Motor Cycle dealer to lend him a 250 racer the dealer had on show in his motorcycle showroom.

Colin reckoned he told the dealer that it would be more publicity for his business for him (Colin) to race it....

I´d better stop -- I have so many stories about the Wobbleyman: what he & Jimmy Wells did for my son Slick etc... etc... that I´d better stop.

Yaaawwnnn... CheerS!

john bass wrote:

This is getting too much. Cheesuzz Murphy! I am getting too worked up about the BRC and the past . We Eastern Centre BRC lads
had been invited to a pub in Brentwood for a MC film show

Me thinks that film was "On any Sunday"  

Yipes ! This stuff is infectious.

Yeah! I think it started off with a surgeon pulling on a leg to bring it from the horizontal thro´the vertical and have it back to near horizontal with the knee alongside the poor bloke´s face ....

... then another surgeon was pulling on the red-gory-bloody hip bone ---

--- oh heck! I feel sick....

PS --The pub was definitely in Shenfield and could have had the name "Green Dragon" -- or was it "Eagle & Child"???

Niffy was killed in the Manx Grand Prix -- which year? I was still in Canada, so it happened  before `83....

East Enders had a whip-round and a bus shelter was built near where he crashed. Or was it (as someone suggested) a Public WC? No laughing matter:   Rightly so, Niffy was often annoyed at the lack of lavatories in popular public places and in the early days of Snetters  he showed  his dusgust at the awful buckets under wooden plank (with holes, of course!) they had there.  The remarks on the walls were not nice either. One was really sick. it said, "Camathias has given up racing sidecar..."   The week before that notice appeared  the popular Swiss sicecar ace had crashed at Brands....

Sorry! this is morbid -- deserves deletion ...?

Yet we -- or at least, I -- remember Niffy with warm feelings --  he would always come to the aid of anyone in need....

Hi John
I saw that film in the isle of man in 73 the opening scene was works Yamaha rider Mike Duff [now Michelle Duff but that's another story] having a hip replacement and the surgeon shows the camera how well the new hip moves can't remember name of the film but I don't think it was On any sunday.
Bill

Mike Duff and the 350 Yamaha, Bill?

There was some discontinuity of fact about that bike being a Works Yam...

It was built in Japan but some say built to an American specification

-- whichever it was, the riders of it reckoned it treacherous to ride much less race.

The Japanese, obviously wanting to get in on all the MC racing acts Also made a bike that got called "The Pregnant Duck" and sometimes "The Trussed Turkey" because its 4 serpentining resonant pipes made its fairing  an odd shape and difficult for riders to get their feet on the rests. It was so powerful that it was always pulling wheelies when not required...
 .
I think it was a Susuki, XR23B that our Barry Sheene,  American, Randy Mamola and our Steve Parish tried to race. Only Sheene could race it successfully, with championship wins in `76 & `77 (or 77 and 78...??)   and that was after fixing a nine pound weight up front on the engine mounts.  The Japanese engineers were not amused but since Barry got those wins  they shut up. Apparently it was Steve who gave Barry the lead weight to fit which he and Randy had also used.

Fancy having so much power that a nine pound ballast was necessary and the machine still win world championships....

The film, at Shenfield  -- if I remember aright -- was about Moto-Cross as well as road-racing and I might well have got the gory operation bit from some other source than the film at Shenfield.

I think that -- Shenfield? -- might get corrected -- hmmm!?

This is not good for me but I cannot let go....

That must be one of those famous, "Last words" or "Last phrases"
like one of the fellows who were  hanging  onto an airship mooring rope as it ascended. One lived and the other fell and died.... or, like this one:
"Nah! come on -- that truck-driver  must have seen us..."

Have a good Sunday, (uh oh!  Monday, I ,mean -- it is Whit Monday here......!)

Cheers!

Hi John
Have done some research it was Mike Duff not on the 350 Yam but the works 250 Yam in1963/64 when he was teammate to Phil Read and he crashed in Japan badly breaking his thigh the Canadian Film Board made a short documentary about his recovery in about 1966 called Ride for your life this went out to clubs etc in the early 70s along with a group of films about Yamaha GPs etc. If you google Mike Duff film or look for it on U tube you can watch it.
Bill

Thanks Bill!

Willco!

Cheers!

Hi Bill,
I couldn´t get the film but I got the full story.
Bit difficult to get my head around -- best left alone.

One cannot wonder why people do things that are positively out-of-the norm -- more out-of-the-norm than motorcycle racing
I mean. After about two decades I happened to bump into an old
school chum, who on hearing I was grass-tracking with a view to
getting into Speedway said, "Crazy! I always knew you had the death-wish..." and then added that he thought I was immature and racing motorcycles was a sure sign of immaturity ...!? He had set his sights on advancing to become Manager of a Co-op stores in our local town.

The words just bouncede off my ego. My life was so different from his and I´ll not go into detail but whilst he was out to achieve his ambition -- and he eventually did -- I was doing lots of things by accident*** that I never thought I´d do, or intended, and finding with each that I was satisfied with "having had a go at that..."

Bantam racing was only one of those many and it is wonderfully refreshing to look back on it and say, "Maybe I could have done better but there were times when I was the best."

Just a date (with name and finishing place) on a silly little trophy brings it all back ....

Nothing like the pro-stars of Phyl Read & Mike Duff but it was real....

Cheers!

***As I told on here earlier I´d intended to build a small hovercraft --
it became a racing Bantam instead.

I was at Mallory in the 60s, 64 or 5 perhaps, spectating at the post TT meeting where Mike Duff was competing on the RD56.
He was allowed a special solo practice session as he had arrived late at the circuit and missed official practice. I was standing at the start and finish when the Yam screamed out of the paddock and towards Gerrards, it was the very first time I saw a race bike wheelie under power, such was the urge from that 250 twin. The 250 four must have been frightening to ride, 70+hp on the tiny, narrow, no grip tyres of the day, and always expecting the thing to seize without warning!
The sound from those two open, un-silenced pipes was magical, at least to me it was, and there were no other bikes around to distort the sound, great international rider Mike and I was pleased to hear he finally was able resolve his acute personal conflict!

I was also at Mallory when Fritz Sheideggar suffered fatal injuries at the hairpin on his BMW outfit, at one point he, astonishingly, persuaded Gilera to let him use a 500 four engine in his outfit, but that's another tale.

Trevor

Nice to see you are still writing Trevor. I sent a message earlier (can´t remember now on which category it was or when ...??) to say I saw an article in Issue #133 BRC Mag... (June-July `73) written by David Amos -- your brother who competed 250 Class (highly successfully) on a 180cc Bantam... In the Bantam Magazine  David says, "Trevor has retired from racing ... etc ... etc ... " and  included that you´d had a bad-one in 1958 ....

If you´d like to talk about that please do so... Don´t if it still hurts (as memory, I mean)... But my point was do you have a copy of that that BRC Mag...??

... if you don´t and would like  a copy I´ll gladly copy the whole thing and send to you in the  sunny west country of dear old Blighty.

Getting heated over you mentioning racing sidecar accidents I must tell of my "going passenger" on the Grass and almost going to the TT as Derek Yorke´s*** passenger in the TT. At a  Newmarket grass meeting I was, quite by chance, passengering for Joe Wheeler of Ilford MC Club whose passenger went AWOL during practice. We had two laps of practice and were leading in the first of the sidecar races. Joe had said to me to get up earlier for the left hand kink in the chicane. So I did. Next thing was the sky and the earth had changed places and Joe and his big Norton & chair were way down below.... The outfit was upside-down as I saw it drop on him. Then, as it righted itself, I flopped across the handlebars. Joe in graet pain -- with broken pelvis -- was loaded into the ambulance. As the doors were about to close, Ken Wiilis -- solo grass & TT racer -- called out, "Don´t go yet, you forgot the passenger ..."  It was then that I felt the blood trickling down from where the clutch lever had gone into my stomach.

The next year´s regs included the manadaite: Ball-Ends to all HB Levers. I think  the accident that forced that one through the resting place of the ACU sleepers was because of a  scrambler bleeding to death after crashing way out in the bushes somewhere -- without anyone knowing until far too late ....

So it was that Derek persuaded me to go sidecar  practising at Boreham on a rainy Sunday whilst Boreham was still prohibited territory. ie Before Chelmsford club (ours)  became shareholders of circuit Racing there. After ten minutes of frightening slides and frenetic (death defying) warping of the Yorke forks & frame  -- and wondering if I didn´t die in another Joe Wheeler style pile up -- it would certainly be   pneumonia that would carry me off,  I was  hoping the police would come and stop it all. But none of that happened and after about two more hours of the agony   Derek asked me to go with him to the Island for the TT.... Norman Gentry (of Velocette KTT fame), Ransom Bros (on Norton and AJS) and other star riders of the day frequented Boreham and although the Law visited and cleared everybody out no charges were ever laid.

At that time Derek had fallen out with his usual passenger, Jimmy Green. That was because Jimmy would often be late for practice at Grass meetings because he just had to do a bit of poaching en-route and would often start from home (Chelmsford) early put in a  couple of hours of that bit of sport and be late at the meetig. Apparently Jimmy promised to give up the poaching on grass meeting days but the truth was the law had laid him low after the bailiff of Lord Rayleigh´s estate caught him and Jimmy had to watch his step with law enforement officers -- for a while.

When Derek apologised for having to disappoint me -- he and Jimmy had made up in time for the TT  -- I pretended to be sadly annoyed  but (not so much ...)   deep down, I was relieved.

Thinking about it now -- I´m sure I was ready to join "Napoleon Bonaparte" and my other "friends" in the Happy House -- I never even told my parents what I was up to at Borham....

***Derek became ACU Grass Track champ -- at Mallory!!! It must have been late fifties...?


Cheers!

Should have been 190cc Bantam -- I think...?

Aye Ooop Trevor!

Whirrzz tha´ bin?

Hope you are OK!

John-Boy.

Yes I`m still here John,
Eleanor and I have been on a short sabbatical to the southern most point of England for a get-away rest, left the home and garden in the charge of a neighbour and disappeared to a rented house and left suburbia behind. No mobile signal, no landline, no Wi-Fi, nearest supermarket 12mls, rural bliss!
Genuine Cornish pasties bought from the kitchen door of an old lady in the local village, and cider from her husband that he called "old shirt tail", speaks for its self. I suppose I ought to say its good to be back but I`m not convinced, yet?

Trevor

Well done that man!

Conwall -- ah Cornwall!! My favourite county...

Was in Mousehole (`muzzssll´ as the locals say)  in Summer `61 staying for a week at an expensive hotel (name forgotten) eating expensive Lobster dishes and paying thro´the nose for the hotel name. We moved along the coast to Mullion Cove and stayed -- the next week -- with a lovely couple in their tiny place at about a 20th*** of the cost of that first week... Nelly was about 5 times the size of Glynn the little  fisherman who had the biggest pair of hands I´ve ever seen. His right hand was frequently, fully  wrapped around a pint mug, the beer of which vanished in a millisecond. his 18foot fishing boat was dragged up the pebbly  beach by a Ruston diesel engine made in 1903. It had a Glow Plug for ignition using a tray and methylated spirits but Glynn used a blow lamp. Whilst the glow plug was warming he´d move the flywheel by its spokes. The Rim of the huge flywheel was above his head and he moved it around until  one of the cast spokes was above his head so that when the time was ripe he´d jump up and grab the spoke. The action of  pulling down on the spoke always started the diesel and Glynn would bounce like a rubber ball when his feet hit the ground -- always with a huge chuckle....

They were a Lovely Pair who introduced us to all their drinking friends in the tip of Cornwall. ***Cost of cider & beer included....

Best holiday of my life....


OK OK, so its nothing to do with Bantam Racing  -- its just another
wonderful Oldie memory.

Go well and stay well Trevor.

Cheers!

John-Boy(just had a birthday where four women at the next table in OUR coffe bar asked how Old...? I said 25 -- and then added, that´s the teeth!)....