Flashback

Captain Tom Moore remembers an early passion

I bought my first motorcycle, a 1920 Royal Enfield two-stroke, when I was 12 – for two shillings and sixpence. It was broken, so I took it home and managed to turn it into a working, rideable motorbike. When I was 18, studying at Bradford Technical College, my father – who, along with my brother, was a motorcyclist before me – bought me a 1936 BSA for the journey. I would ride it day after day – there was so much beautiful countryside where we lived in West Yorkshire.

In this photo, I’m about 35 years old and I’m sitting on a Scott, which I rode several times for vintage motorcycle races and local competitions in Yorkshire. You were given a set route and a time in which to do it and you had to keep to it. If you did it properly, you arrived everywhere at just the right time. Speed wasn’t the thing, it was timekeeping that was important. My motorcycle was owned by a man called Oliver Lampton – I was lent bicycles by people who knew that I was a possible winner. I’m probably quite pleased with myself in this photo because there are several awards in my arms… I won lots of awards for my motorcycle riding, having had army training in doing things the right way.

I was conscripted when I was 20 years old. Joining the army was no hardship, nor did I have any fears. At that age, I don’t think you’re very nervous about things like that. My parents were probably a little bit fearful, but they didn’t show it. They looked forward to the fact that I was going to take part in a war that we were all involved in. I joined the 8th Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, which was made up of men between 20 and 35 years old. Conscription didn’t select you on what you did, just as long as you were the right age, so there were farm labourers, office workers and accountants. I remember writing to my mother, telling her that us 20-year-olds were finding it OK, but the older men were finding it quite difficult – by the ‘old men’ I meant the 30-year-olds.

I was transferred to the 9th Battalion, a tank regiment, and were eventually shipped off to India. We were in a convoy of ships that left Liverpool and went north around Ireland, then down through the Atlantic, arriving in Bombay six weeks later. Fortunately I was never seasick. When we arrived in India, things were quite different. From Bombay, we went by train to Pune and the ‘air-conditioning’ on the large galvanised train was just a big block of ice. The atmosphere was so different from home.

For VE Day I was back in England at Bovington, the armoured-vehicle fighting school, where we were training people and instructing them on howtorideintanks.wehada day off and there were a lot of celebrations. At last, we had won the war in Europe. I was just getting on with the work, though. We were training people for what was still going on in the East. Although the war had finished, there was a lot of work to continue in Europe – a lot of time was spent tidying everything up.

Obviously I didn’t have any idea that I would be able to achieve something like this. When you are 20 or 30 you don’t look ahead – it’s just the future.

And I never considered that I would get to this age. When I was 50, I never thought I was only halfway through my life. I’ve always been an optimist – I do believe that the future is going to be much better. And I still have my army uniform, which I had when I was demobilised, in the wardrobe. It’s still there. I did try it on recently, but it was just a little bit tight.

— As told to Anna Clarke To donate to Captain Tom’s Just Giving page visit: justgiving.com/ f undraising /toms walkforthenhs

Astride a Scott racing motorcycle at 35, and on his charity walk (below)