PIP HIGHAM The rite of passage.
One of the most exciting days of my teenage life was spent shopping in Manchester. Not in the Trafford Centre or the Arndale (hadn't even been built, never mind built, bombed and re-built), but in a fantastic shop called Hemmings on Deansgate. I'd spent hours looking through their window and more than a couple of Saturdays surveying helmets, gloves, boots and any number of jackets, leather, PVC, (yikes!) and other stuff. For months I'd been saving up the cash required for the big day: June 9, 1965. Prior to that date I'd wagged it from WWGS in order to re-point the long-suffering gable wall at our then little TV shop. To clarify that, I spent about six weeks balanced on planks supported on drums, supported on trestles, scraping out perished mortar and then podging fresh goop back into the uneven gaps twixt the ancient lumps of masonry. I really needed that forty-odd quid (eight quid a week, and a week had seven days, init, then!) Insurance for my Ariel was twenty-three quid, and I had to get the rest of my kit for about the same. With the pointing trowel safely stowed and a pocketful of loot, I shot off to town on the Number 38. First off, a pair of Kett boots for five pounds seven and sixpence; unlined black leather zip-ups, which were a 'must have’; a pair of 'no name' leather gloves; and some thick white socks were another fiver. Next up, the big question: Barbour or Belstaff? Both waxed cotton jackets (no over-trousers, as they were for blokes with Panthers and Velocettes) were similar creations. The Barbour had a smooth velvet neck band, whereas the Belstaff Trialmaster had a natty brown cord finish in that area. No doubt there were other differences and as with most things, members of either 'club' delighted in pointing out the shortcomings of the other. Triumph or Norton? Brit or Japanese? Clip-ons or Ape 'angers? I settled for a Belstaff, which was about a pound cheaper at five pounds ten shillings, and that quid would buy me four gallons of Super at five bob a gallon. Whenever I’d been on the back of my mates bikes for a Saturday morning tootle about, I’d borrowed a spare lid off one of them. Now I was buying my own, I knew exactly what I wanted... a Stadium Project 2, in white. The price? Sixty-five shillings to you sir, and a pair of goggles were, I think, about twelve and six. For any youths who are slightly confused with all these random monetary references, there were twenty shillings in one pound, thus my P2 cost a bit over three quid. I won’t try to explain tanners, florins or half crowns, as it was complicated back then. Now my work was done, the bike was taxed and insured, I had my kit and I was rather keen to ride, legally (ahem, I might possibly have ridden up and down the avenues at the back of our gaff on various rag-tag bikes, mopeds and scooters on occasion, but don’t tell anyone) on the Queen’s Highway. I think that first sunny Saturday morning was just the most amazing day imaginable. Tentatively burbling down the road was so much more than a two dimensional journey. It dished out excitement, pride and, above all, freedom in buckets. I could now go up Worsley Brew as fast as I occasionally went down it on my push bike. This most definitely was the life. I scooted round to see my mates in a haze of 2T smoke. My 250 Ariel had about 15 horse-power on a good day, and shocking brakes, but I didn’t give a toss. It was mine, bought as a mangled wreck when I was 14 from Billy Briggs at Salford, and duly stripped and rebuilt after much head scratching and many tribulations. Also, no surprise, modified in many areas. If someone had told me that I’d be riding something with 25 times as much power in a few years time, I might have questioned the need or the logic behind a move like that. Mind you, my dream bike, a Yam YDS3, did have about twice as many ponies as the Ariel, so I had already contracted the early symptoms of a pernicious disease, and one which I may still have. cmm