‘The people in the classic bike world are amazing’

Ithink I was 12 years old when I sold my first classic bike. Only, of course they weren’t ‘classic’ bikes back then in the late ’60s – just old bikes that nobody wanted. It was inevitable – my dad was an ex-wartime dispatch rider, my uncle was also into bikes, and I grew up surrounded by them. I’d spot an old bike in someone’s garden and just knock on the door. I could buy them for next to nothing, tidy them up, get them going and sell them on.

After school, I got an apprenticeship in Ipswich. But as soon as I’d finished it,

I was back to the bikes. I was fed up with being told what to do and started trading bikes and parts from my mum’s house. It didn’t take long before the neighbours got fed up with all the bikes – and their riders. So I looked for some premises of my own.

I found a place on the old airfield at Martlesham and moved there. Before long, I had to move to a bigger unit on the airfield. I was buying dealers’ parts stocks when they were trying to get rid of the British stuff in the early ’70s – but by the mid-’70s, the classic bike movement really started to take off and autojumbles sprang up. That put an end to the parts side of the business, but with the market for bikes on the up, I concentrated on that.

I was buying as many bikes as I could – sometimes 20 at a time from a numberplate dealer in Bournemouth. Some people moan about numberplate dealers, but they kickstarted the classic bike trade. By 1985, I had to move again and found our current premises at Framlingham.

Things have changed a bit since then, but I still love what I’m doing. And the people in the classic bike world are amazing. Sometimes strange, but amazing. One of the strangest deals I’ve done was at Newark Autojumble quite a few years ago.

I went over for a closer look at a huge, bright green bike – a Harley-davidson WL engine in a home-built frame, all painted in John Deere colours and with a small plough fitted under the engine. “Well, people say Harleys are like tractors,” the owner explained. Did I buy it? Of course! Eventually, a German customer bought it from me. “You’ll never be able to get it on the road in Germany with your TUV rules,” I said. I saw him about five years later at the Mannheim autojumble and he had got it registered. It turns out his neighbour was a TUV inspector. It’s not what you know... andybuysbikes.com