BACKWARDS GLANCE
Comments about revisiting the bike haunts from our youth prompted me to send this in. When I were a lad in Bristol, the dealer of choice for Mots was Bryan Newth’s, which was convenient as it was also my nearest. I remember Mr Newth speaking in a high pitched voice and always addressing everybody as ‘skip’. Apparently he was a TT rider at some time.
In his later years, when I had dealings with him, his interests had turned more to steam engines, and there were usually some bits of these in the showroom. I also remember the mechanic’s name, because it appeared on MOT certificates. It was, rather splendidly, Walter Nathaniel Perks.
I bought my favourite bike from him – a BSA B33 with ZB34 barrel and head.
A grainy photo of me standing with it in the snow is seen here, together with a slightly better one showing it at a French campsite in 1970. In the background you can just make out my friend John’s B33 and my friend Dave’s A7. We were en route to a camping holiday in southern Germany. The rider bending over his Guzzi was a Dutchman who kindly brewed up some coffee for us when we arrived at the campsite.
When my ex-wd BSA M20 was damaged in an accident, I took the parts to Bryan Newth for respraying from green (all over!) to silver and black. I think the result was pretty good. Strangely enough, I also bought my first car from Bryan Newth – an Austin A35 he’d taken in part-exchange.
When I had a meeting in Bristol a couple of years ago, I was amused to have my lunch in the café that now sits on the site. The entrance and windows are exactly as they were. You can sit eating where bikes used to be displayed.
Another Bristol dealer of note was Reg Hall, who ran Charlie’s Motorcycles. He was quite a legend and probably deserves a more extensive write-up, hopefully by somebody who knows more about it than me. Arthur Sampson, member 13,688 As I may have mentioned before, Blanchards of Eltham have a lot to answer for. I passed their shop on Well Hall Road twice daily during my schooldays in the 1970s, and gazed in awe at the amazing vision of an Ariel Square which took pride of place in the window. That machine seems to have inspired a lifelong association with two (and three!) wheelers. Here’s a photo of the shop in its earlier days…