Déjà vu

My kingdom for a Brough!

Nice story about the Harley WLA in OBA 42. In Victoria many WLAs found their way into the Victoria Police Force. Prior to WW2, the police here were using Brough-Superior 11-50 Sidecar Outfits, and as we all know, when hostilities ended there were to be no more Broughs. So what could be found to replace the now elderly B-S outfits? The venerable Ex-Army Harley WLA, of which there must have been thousands. Here are two photos (above and right) probably taken in late 1947, showing a couple of Victoria Police riders looking absolutely delighted to be on a WLA rather than a Brough 11-50! Grant Barrett Victoria Your magazine has brought back many memories to this old fellow who is now 84 years young. Reading OBA 41, what a surprise I received when I opened page 38 – I thought I saw my bother-in-law and myself in action again. The photo of Lionel Bauers was a dead ringer for a long-lost photo of mine; our helmets were painted exactly the same. We were running an old BSA Empire Star on a Sid Willis 13:1 piston on Shell A with a fuel carby and close-ratio gears. Some of our competitors were Billy Slater, the Jarvis brothers and Tommy Carr from Parramatta Radiators. Mostly we raced at Mittagong, Goulburn and Mount Druitt. Bill Morris arrived at Bathurst with a brand new Golden Flash BSA and went pretty well, but this was where our wives said ‘enough’ because the Jarvis boy crashed and did not survive. Bob Defina Wauchope, NSW