The grand old lady of Elizabeth Street
We have received many tributes to JEAN BEANHAM and publish these two in memory of a wonderful woman. Jean Beanham was English by birth and worked as a nurse at Charring Cross Hospital and the offices of Rolls Royce during WW2. After the war she emigrated to Australia and by chance met my father courtesy of a broken down car. They married, and her first introduction to motorcycles was in 1948 as assistant to husband Rob at Allparts, 423 Elizabeth Street Melbourne, then part of his brother Harry’s 3-state operation. When Rob had the chance to purchase Modak in 1955 they moved to 342 Elizabeth Street. By now Jean was becoming familiar with motorcycles and her extensive knowledge was appreciated by those she served. Modak then moved to 299 Elizabeth Street when the block was acquired by the Melbourne Underground Authority. On the death of Rob, in 2001 she continued to work a 5 1/2 day week until 3 weeks before her death on 14th June 2016 at the age of 91. She raised 5 children while working and was honoured by The Classic Motorcycle Club in 2013 for over 60 years of service to the motorcycle industry. In the same year she received a platinum award – the highest – from the Melbourne lord mayor at his annual Commendation Awards ceremony for her service in the City of With the passing of “Mrs Modak”, Jean Beanham, 90 years young, possibly the last active working link to the post war motorcycle boom period has been broken. I first met this amazing person as a young lad in the late 1960s when a group of us, all a similar age, would save our pocket money and make the annual or sometimes biannual trip by train from Frankston to Elizabeth St and spend our ‘hard earned’ on such trick bits as ball end levers, scramble bars, alloy guards and whatever other bits our BSAs or Jawas needed. One such time we spent nearly all our money and were contemplating just a couple more purchases when Mrs Beanham said ‘Now boys, I think you have spent enough.’ With that advice we headed home. I can’t really imagine anyone in retail ever saying that these days but that’s the way she was: an amazing font of knowledge and a great personality that will be surely missed within the classic motorcycle scene and the broader trade.