OWNER DETAILS
Name: Andy Newman.
Scooter club & town: Guernsey Scooter Collective.
First interest in scooters: Age of 16 and hooked by the 80s Mod revival and
2 Tone bands, we used to go to Granby Halls roller skating on a Tuesday and then go over the road to the Freemans Arms to try a get a sneaky pint. Tuesdays was also the night that the Leicester Phoenix Scooter Club used to meet there. The little side road was full of scooters, I just had to get one.
First scooter: Lambretta Li150 Series 2, (still got it) bought it from a hairy biker that I worked with when I started my first proper job at the GPO for £20.
First ever rally: Scarborough 1981. We slept in a timber yard until we got turfed out, a bus shelter and a phone box, we knew how to live.
How did you get there: On my bogstandard Li150 S2, wearing a parka, tonic suit and winkle-picker shoes, no idea how much petrol money I would get through and freezing cold.
Favourite rally: IoW, easy for us to get to from Guernsey. Went to all the rallies there in the 80s, always a lovely welcoming place.
Least favourite rally: Southport in 1984, the police had told all the B&B owners not to let us stay. We had been in the town for 20 minutes and were pulled over by a Gene Hunt character police officer, then a riot broke out in a pub. With nowhere to stay, getting dark and the risk of being arrested for walking on the wrong side of the road, we headed out of town and stumbled across this massive old house in a village that luckily was a guest house. We went to the local pub and made the best of a rubbish rally.
Funniest experience involving scooters:
A mass pile-up of our scooter club within 10 minutes of setting off to a rally. All going too fast in thick fog, I was in a sidecar and we ended up spinning and going backwards with scooters heading for me, peeling left and right, missing the sidecar by millimetres. Only injury was a dislocated little finger.
What do you like about rallies: Being with like-minded people, seeing all the old faces that I don’t get to see so often and admiring the time and effort that everyone takes restoring and customising their scooters.
Your most recommended scooter part or related item: Always carry a spare CDI unit. Most useless part you’ve ever bought for a scooter: A parka in the rain.
What would make our beloved scooters better: That we didn’t ever have to worry about anyone pinching them. A teleport button that gets you and your scooter straight home in the case of breakdowns.