Old Shonky
The enclosed photo is a handicap race at Caversham, 15km from Perth, in 1958. I am on my 7R AJS, leading John Rova’s Triumph twin and Steve Wegner’s BSA Gold Star. The following year I got a job at Repco in Melbourne and took the 7R over too. Ivan Tighe was my boss and he even let me leave the 7R in the workshop store so I could work on it in lunch breaks. Ron Miles also worked there and gave me a GP Amal carb which made the bike go a lot quicker. Naturally it broke my heart when Ron went back to the Continent and had his fatal crash. After a few races at Fishermans bend and Mallala I still had the bike at Repco. One Friday I told an apprentice, Les ‘Shonky’ Sheppard, I was taking the 7R down
to Geelong Road to give it a run and he asked if he could come. I did a few runs and all seemed OK, and Shonky said, ‘Do you mind if I have a ride?’ he took off OK but when time passed by and he didn’t return, I drove off to see what was going on. All I saw were spots of oil and bits of magnesium, then the bike with the flywheels in the breeze. It appeared he had missed a gear and over-revved it and the 12-year-old magnesium couldn’t handle it. Shonky went on to be a mechanic for Coventry Climax open wheelers and my 7R was a shadow of its former self with an iron BSA B31 engine in place of the 7R engine. Of course it never went as well and vibrated like crazy. The moral of the story is never trust anyone called ‘Shonky’.