Triumph testing (and piano playing in the RAF!)

Your front page photograph of Triumph executives riding Triumph’s 1958 range of 500cc twins, including what looks like Bob Currie on a Tiger Cub, brought back many happy memories for me.

I was employed as a motorcycle tester at Triumph’s Meriden factory at that time, when all production models were tested on the public highway using trade plates. The seven bikes on the photo all carry AAC number plates, which were issued by the Warwickshire Licensing Authority. Rider on the bike number 290 AAC is Neil Shilton, our government contract sales manager, whose main work involved selling bikes for police and military work worldwide.

Neil worked at Triumph after Second World

War service with the RAF, and rode what he was selling daily. After Triumph Engineering went out of business with the demise of BSA Automotive, he went on until retirement to work for BMW selling BMW to the police forces in the UK. More commonly known as Sid Shilton at Meriden, he was a very accomplished jazz pianist, and he once told me one could enjoy life much more if one could play a piano in the RAF!

Time dims the memory and I cannot recognise the other riders. But Bob Currie was always a Triumph rider, plus founding editor of The Classic MotorCycle.

Edward Turner was 57 years of age when the photograph was taken, somewhere in Wales. He was still very much chief executive at Meriden in spite of BSA Group’s growing influence from Small Heath.

Jim Lee, former Triumph road tester