Edgar Jessop

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Possibly as a result of his mastery in forging free drinks vouchers for the temporary bars run by Okell’s Ales at the TT races, Edgar was covertly impressed to the staff of Bletchley Park, the code breaking organisation, where his multi-lingual skills and diplomatic ties were invaluable. Through his deep friendship with Charles de Gaulle (Edgar co-wrote de Gaulle’s famous Appel du 18 Juin broadcast in 1940 which galvanised the Free French Forces against the Axis powers) Edgar was able to arrange supplies of French Onion soup and Calvados to fortify Allied troops for the Normandy landing which swung the tide of the war. Naturally Edgar’s consummate skills as a world class motorcycle competitor saw him in great demand with various military departments. As well as instructing future dispatch riders in techniques such as riding underwater and backwards (in case of retreat), he oversaw the conversion of surplus Spagforth Salamanders into motorised potato peelers. Transported by blimp and dropped over enemy lines under cover of darkness, Edgar infiltrated the DKW works and made off with an RS125, which he rode back to Britain and delivered it to the BSA works in Birmingham where it became the Bantam.

Much of the detail of Edgar’s war service is publically restricted under the Official Secrets Act, but it is known that when captured in Belgium and imprisoned in Stalag 17, he escaped in an aircraft that he had constructed from sun-hardened bratwurst casing, powered by an engine purloined from the prison commander’s electric toothbrush.

ABOVE Edgar Jessop delivers a captured German Dachshund to Bletchley Park. Under interrogation, the dog revealed the key to several codes vital to the cracking of the Enigma Machine.

ABOVE Watched by keen recruits to the Dispatch Riders Corps, Edgar Jessop demonstrates his technique for clearing landmine-infested swampland.