John Edwards
Having missed out on my target AJS, Graham’s salesman, Dennis Harman, offered me an equally useful looking 1957 James Commando competition bike instead.
Obviously, with its little 197cc 8E two-stroke engine, the James was a big backward step in terms of capacity and street-cred compared with the AJS, but it was a very nicely sorted bike, looking the business with a one-off 'up and over' exhaust system and a genuine BSA motocross seat. Nevertheless, and not surprisingly, my unspoken response to the idea of buying it was “you are kidding me, here, Dennis….”
But Dennis (who later, with his wife, Iris, became good friends) always was a brilliant salesman, so even though the James didn’t even have any lighting, he simply and very skilfully, sold it to me.
He told me it had been his own competition bike, was a superb all-round, off-road weapon and a winner in hill climbs to boot. Having upgraded to a pukka 250cc 'unit' AJS motocrosser, he no longer needed it. It had already been through the workshops, was in completely 'A1' condition and was ready to go. Well, I had come to buy a bike and the part-exchange offer on mine was fair. The James was certainly distinctive so, ever impulsive, I agreed the deal.
The Commando was most certainly not a disappointment. It turned out to be an absolutely cracking, indestructible and very special little trials bike; one that had been expertly put together and tuned to provide loads of bottom end torque with impeccable carburation. You could literally do endless, lock to lock, figures-of-eight on it, feet-up and at a snail’s pace with no hint of it stalling; something I would often amuse myself by doing in the factory yard during my lunch breaks at work.
Notwithstanding its trickling ability, it would also absolutely storm up a rocky, off-road climb like a mountain goat on steroids and was no slouch on the road. I absolutely loved it to bits and was rarely off it, using it as my go-to-work and general transport during the week, with a bulb horn and 'bobby-dodger' bicycle lights when necessary in the winter.
The exquisitely crafted exhaust system seemed not to include anything that could be described as a 'silencer'. It made a gorgeously musical warble through the obviously empty pipe whenever the engine failed to fire, a very pleasant burble at tick-over speeds and was wickedly noisy at anything over that.
This latter situation inevitably caught the ear of a police constable in Brighton’s main shopping centre on one occasion and I was pulled over, deliberately stalling the engine as I stopped.
“Start the engine again,” the lawman demanded, both ears flapping in eager expectation of a sure-fire 'nick'.
“Sure,” I replied, leaning the bike somewhat over to the left, knowing this would flood it, and kicking it over…. then again… and again… for long minutes, in fact; but to no avail.
“It can often be a pig to start…” I commented, untruthfully.
Long story, short… the officer of the law got bored before I did.
“If I hear that thing again,” he warned before drifting off in exasperation, “I promise; you will be nicked.”
“Nice one,” I thought. Then it was plug out, a few clearing kicks; spare plug in and off we went… in the opposite direction to the constable, of course.
Miffed... and melting
As it happened, I was already a bit fed up with my right leg getting uncomfortably warm at times and quite miffed by the fact that in wet weather, the exhaust pipe kept melting my cheap plastic overtrousers (a Barbour suit was well beyond my budget in those days). This was a good time then, to fit a more conventional system. Sadly, it neither looked as good nor made such a lovely noise as the original, but it was more practical. And legal.
Regrettably, although it would have been absolutely ideal, I never rode the Commando in a competitive event. In those days I was so naïve that I didn’t have a clue about how to go about it. Eventually, I kept it for less than a year, until the end of August in 1959, not much longer than I had kept the 250 BSA, even though I had loved it more.
When I did ride competitively a few years later in 1962, in a trial at Heathfield in Sussex, it was on a Francis-Barnett Falcon which, being by then more of an expert with the spanners, I had converted to trials trim complete with an 8E motor from a Bond Minicar, hoping it might have more torque than the average. This, for added interest, entailed modifying the gearbox from three forward and one reverse to four forward gears. The bike was okay, but not as pukka as the James had been. Riding the 'Fanny Barnett' in the trial, I soon wished I still had the James. Apart from being inferior in all areas, it took two clutch rebuilds to struggle to the end of the event. The bike was never going to get me home to Brighton as well.
Happily, a kindly couple who had been assisting with the event offered to tow me half way home to their place in Uckfield, where the bike could remain until I could get some replacement clutch plates and return to fix it. This time the towing experience was fine. Since that first attempt behind the Cyclemaster, I had learned that when being towed the rope must be looped a couple of turns around the centre of the handlebars with the loose end gripped by my throttle hand so that I could cast off whenever I needed to….
Selling the Commando in 1959 had been an impulsive decision. My friend Ronnie, with whom I had previously shared the garage, had finished his National Service and was home with a 650cc Ariel Huntmaster. This used to thunder most impressively up the steep hill on which he lived. My little James – now not quite so noisy but still no slouch – was never going to match the sheer grunt of the big 650 twin. Suddenly, I wanted something that would thunder impressively up that hill… and for a very good reason. Girls were becoming rather interesting.
Soon enough, I found myself a nice black 1954 650cc BSA A10 which sported the latest rear swingarm option as opposed to the rear plunger version which had tottered on for that one final year.
Incidentally Ronnie’s 1958 Ariel, a company by then owned by the BSA group, was actually a variation of my A10, but with a few notable improvements including a stronger frame and swing arm. This Ariel frame later became the 'must have' choice for sidecar scramblers for some time, chosen mainly for its super tough swing-arm and usually teamed with a hot 650 Triumph motor and custom made leading link front forks.
So, my purchase of the A10 had been bang on time. It was a bike obviously far more likely to appeal to girls than the James. My other mate Ray and I had already found ourselves two attractive sisters and were soon courting them.
Ray’s love, Margaret, was never into bikes and soon lured him away from his Excelsior Talisman and onto four wheels. From there, he never did get back to bikes.
Four-wheel pressure
The big BSA, however, was just what I needed. For over a year, Margaret’s slightly older sister, Kathy, was perfectly content to ride pillion with me. Eventually, however, Ray and Margaret got engaged and the pressure was soon on me to fall in line, swap two wheels for four and start looking at engagement rings.
Kathy was undoubtedly an attractive girl, though sometimes a trifle moody and I did try to ease the situation in early 1961 by agreeing to exchange the big BSA for a smaller bike, ostensibly in order to save money for a car. I took the opportunity to trade the A10 in for an Excelsior Talisman twin, similar to the delightful one Ray had owned, so it wasn’t too much of a wrench. Of course, I liked that bike a lot but it was an older model than Ray’s and not awfully reliable. It lasted only a month or so before I was seduced into trading up once again, this time to a much newer 250cc two-stroke twin, a low mileage 1960 Ariel Arrow.
The Arrow was an infinitely better bike than the Excelsior in every way and absolutely phenomenal for its time. With its groundbreaking monocoque frame, it was light, steered superbly and was commendably quick; tuned versions not looking out of place on the race track. Its only real shortcoming was the notoriously long trail of blue smoke that marked its passage, which was only embarrassing if you let it be. Of course, nowadays you would almost certainly be ashamed to be seen on such a smoky bike and I imagine modern oils allowing a leaner oil to petrol mix now solve that problem.
Not surprisingly, buying the Arrow was not a popular move, particularly as it had cost a lot more than we had made on the BSA. It also had a tendency to noisily scrape its centre stand when cornering briskly, two-up. Very soon, the dreaded
'car' word got mentioned ever more often, despite the fact that at the time I had never even driven one and had no desire to do so.
Kathy’s big mistake was one day issuing me with an ultimatum. Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t afford to run a car and a bike… and the motorcycling would always to win.
So, along with so many youngsters, the Sixties were due to be the start of a whole new era for me and destined to be fondly remembered as my favourite decade.
The Fifties were merely the start of my biking adventures. My later tales won’t continue chronologically.
I’ve owned too many bikes to bore readers that way. In future tales, what I bought and when will be merely incidental information as I bounce around the highlights of my biking life. My tales of the Sixties, however, will illustrate how Cher’s much later song Believe ('Do you believe in life after love?' really did come true…