BOOKFACE AND PUDDINGHEAD

“YOU’RE A SILLY BUGGER,” COLIN SAID. MARTIN WINCED SLIGHTLY. “THEY HAVE CLEVER BLOKES AT THE FACTORY,” COLIN WENT ON. “THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING. THEY’VE GOT SMART WHITE COATS, AND SLIDE RULES, AND SHARPENED PENCILS. THEY’VE BEEN DOING THIS STUFF SINCE BEFORE THE GREAT WAR. THEY KNOW ALL ABOUT THE ANGLES AND THE STRESS STUFF. HOW COME YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THEY DO?”

Martin didn’t really have an answer to this. He kicked an empty oil can, and sent it rattling along the floor. Sure, the blokes at the factory knew what they wanted, but he knew what he wanted. “Anyway, nobody builds a chopper out of a Norton. They’re all Triumphs.” He accentuated the word ‘chopper’ as if it was something unfortunate, like bad breath. “Or Harleys. Yeah, and who do you know that owns a Harley? You’ve only ever seen them in magazines and war films.” This was also true. Martin had no more oil cans to kick. “You’ve got to work with what you’ve got.” “Oh yes, as the actress said to the bishop.” “Oh, very funny.” “Sell the Domi and get a Bonnie.” Martin harrumphed. He knew this engine inside out, and loved it dearly. Anyway, wasn’t it all about being different? “Anyway, who’s going to do all this cutting and welding for you? Don’t tell me you’re going to do it yourself?” Martin snorted a bit of a laugh. “No, no. Do you remember Turner from school?” “What? Puddinghead Turner? He was in the dunce’s stream. Thick as mashed potato. You’re not really going to give him a bike frame to chop up?” “Hey, listen, he might be as thick as three short planks, but he’s brilliant at this stuff. He works at that garage at the end of the bypass. Does all the tricky welding and brazing. His boss lets him go in on Sunday and do foreigners. If Puddinghead does it for me it’ll be right. It’ll be spot on.” “Okay, so Billy Whiz does his thing, and it’s a lovely job – what then?” “Then it needs to be sprayed, of course. Three coats of grey undercoat, then tangerine metalflake. You can get the paint from a place in Surrey. They bring it in from the States.” “And it costs a fortune?” “Well, yeah. It’s not cheap. And I’m going to do it myself, in here.”

Colin looked round the wooden garden shed. You wouldn’t think there was room to swing a cat, let alone get far enough back to spray paint a bike frame. “Are we talking rattly cans?” he asked. “Yeah. Quite a few of them.” Martin sounded a bit sheepish. “So your dad’s shed’ll be half grey primer and half orange metalflake?” “It’ll be alright. I’ve got a load of old sheets I’ll pin up. And I’ve got some springer forks off an old Ariel. Cost me ten bob. He’s going to extend them for me, as well as do the frame. That way we’ll be able to set it up on blocks so that it sits right. I’ll get the front end chromed...” “Let me guess. Fingers Alker is going to sort the chroming?” “Well, of course. Who else?” “You’ve got to give him credit. He went for the job at the platers wearing baggy overalls and a big coat, and walking with a limp. Now he smuggles in everything you could imagine. Got customers for miles around. Probably turns over more money than the company.” “Yes, that’s him. He makes a fortune. He’ll be alright until the day when he forgets which leg to limp with.” They both laughed. “One more question,” said Colin. “Where did all the sheets come from? Are they your mum’s?” “Fingers got me those.” “So there’s some poor lady whose washing line has gone a bit patchy?” They laughed again. Martin started a roll-up and, with a very slight gesture, offered one to Colin. He shook his head. “I’m going into town. Catch up with the lads. You coming?” “No, it’s okay. I’ve got stuff to clean up before I give it to Puddinghead.” Martin heard Colin’s Interceptor fire up and pull away. Those reverse-cone megas made a lovely noise. That bike would wake the dead. When he’d got the Dominator, it was a full-on caff racer. That was three years ago, when he was sixteen. Twenty-five quid; a bargain. The bike was insured, and had an MoT. The tax disc was real – not just a Mackeson label. The fact that he only had a provisional license was incidental, he thought. He never got stopped. Three months later he passed his test first time, riding his dad’s Honda 90. 100% legal now, thank you very much. In rocker trim it’d had a bacon slicer on the front wheel; a chrome peak on the headlight (with a little clear, red lozenge on top so you’d know when the main beam was shining); slightly iffy homemade rear-sets; and a bum-achingly thin seat with a bump at the back end. The ’pipes were the best thing about it – swept-back front pipes with Dunstall silencers. Worth a few bob. The guy who was getting rid of it had a fibreglass petrol tank to fit it, with an alloy Monza cap, deep knee depressions, and really nice Norton transfers. He’d passed on that. The bloke who was selling said he’d been married a year, and his missus was up the duff so the bike had to go. He was going to get a Reliant Regal. Another one bites the dust, Martin thought. He had a lovely, small petrol tank to clean up he’d found in a scrapyard. It was solid, undented. No idea what it was off, but it looked vaguely Italian. It was almost exactly what the Yanks called a peanut tank. At the same yard he’d found a wide rear mudguard, probably a shield for a spare tyre under the back of a van. Looked almost new. Puddinghead was all of three weeks with the cutting and welding. After a fortnight Martin’d dropped into the garage on spec one Sunday. “Sod off. I told you I’d come round to your house when I’m done,” he’d been told. A week later he appeared at the back door of Martin’s parents’ house. He had the frame and forks in the back of the firm’s Hillman Husky. He’d done a magnificent job. The springers looked as if they had been made that way at the factory – as well as extending the rake on the headstock, he’d cut the top rails and brought

them in by two or three inches either side where the side rails curved round the oil tank on one side, and the tool box on the other – he’d taken a point a third of the way into the tube, and welded in new tubing. That went down to new plates at the centre of the rear wheel, and met more new steel, which stretched forward to the back of the engine cradle. Who would rake and hardtail a Featherbed frame? Well, Martin would, and he thought it looked wonderful. They set it up in the yard on wooden blocks and old bricks. Martin slipped in the tall and skinny front wheel, which had come off a 250cc somethingor-other, and had cost him five shillings, complete with a halfdecent tyre. He didn’t have the new, chunky back wheel and tyre yet, but they measured how high it would be. The frame and forks sat just right. Martin was delighted. “So, what d’you think, Bookface? Is it alright or is it alright?” “It’s alright, mate, no two ways about it,” Martin replied. “Oh, nearly forgot these, Bookface.” Puddinghead went back to the Husky and pulled out a plastic bag with Martin’s sacred collection of American custom bikes inside. He loaned them to Puddinghead for reference, and glancing into the bag was mortified to see torn covers and oily fingerprints. He sighed, but saw no point in saying anything about the desecration. As he was giving Puddinghead a crisp fiver (a bit pricey, but probably worth it, especially as he’d fetched and carried) he asked: “What did you call me?” “Bookface. You never heard that before? At school everyone knew you as Bookface. You always had your nose stuffed into some book or other. Every time I ever saw you, there you were with your Shakespeare or whoever.” “Well, I never knew that!” “Ah, you do now.” Puddinghead laughed. “You live and learn, eh Bookface?” Colin was good as gold while the Norton was in bits. He came round and collected Martin, and they met up with the other local lads, riding twoup. There were about a dozen or fifteen like-minded souls in town. Them and their mates called themselves greebos, while everyone else called them greasers. Practical Motorcyclist called their motorcycles ‘cowboy bikes’, and were very rude about them. Fair enough; greebos didn’t build their bikes for the delight of their readers – old farts that they were. The style of cowboy bikes was rather strange, Martin always thought, looking back years later. They were, in effect, standard bikes, but with every imaginable accessory bolted on. The ‘bolted-on’ bit was important; nothing was hacksawed or welded, and an hour with a screwdriver and a few spanners’d restore the bike to standard. The biggest difference was the rider’s position. Instead of the hands being level with the middle of the headlight, as they would be with clip-ons, the new-fangled ape-hangers raised the hands level with the shoulders. Instead of the feet being way behind the hips, as they would be with rearsets, the ’pegs and foot controls were in the standard position, but often, at cruising speeds, the feet went way forwards to perch on crash bars. The smart thing to do was slit a pair of pedal rubbers lengthwise and then glue them on to the crash bars (with the join out of sight, of course, underneath), so that heavy boots didn’t damage the chrome. In a way all the bolted-on stuff echoed what Mods were doing to their scooters (not that you’d ever say as much). The cowboy bikes had fringed seat covers (often printed in leopard skin); shorter front mudguards; highlevel exhaust pipes and finned clamps; polished alloy tanks (sometimes from trials bikes); and long lengths of chromeeffect, curly-wurly plastic tubing which covered the extended cables. These cowboy bikes were a stop-gap between caff racers and choppers. All you needed was the mad courage to start cutting up a standard frame.

The build took from early November until the end of March, and soaked up every penny Martin earned, one way or another. The day came to fire it up. The motor would be sound, he knew, but how would it feel? This astonishing, thrilling new incarnation. He rode six or eight feet across the yard and then, when he tried the front brake, the ape-hangers tilted forward. Terrifying. First modification – high tensile Allen bolts, twisted into the handlebar mounts as tightly as he could. Out of the corner of his eye he could see movement through the kitchen window. The sound of the Norton firing up after all these months’d caught his father’s attention. His dad lived a very quiet life. He never had much to say to his son. Two dark shadows hung over him: the pain of shrapnel which’d lodged deep inside him during the battle of Tripoli, and which defied all efforts to extract it – that and the shameful, frustrating, ever-hungry, and scared year he had spent in a PoW camp. He went to work, came home, read the Daily Express every working day, and the News of the World on Sundays, cleaned out his pipe with dedicated fastidiousness, and cooed at his budgie, Susie. That was it. His son was surprised to see him come round the side of the house into the yard. He stopped a couple of yards away, chewed at the stem of his pipe, and said: “I was wondering what you were doing out here all winter. It’s a rare old colour. I need sunglasses.” “Do you like it, dad?” “What, the colour? Reminds me of the carpets at the place I used to go dancing with your mum before the War.” It wasn’t cruelly meant. Martin smiled. “It’s certainly different, lad. Never seen anything like it. Will it impress the ladies?” “I can’t afford ladies, Dad, not given what I’ve spent on this.” “Well, perhaps they’ll be so impressed they’ll treat you.” Martin laughed. His dad snorted a bit of a laugh. Martin couldn’t remember them ever exchanging this many words before. “Your mother was thinking of doing a corned beef hash for tea. How does that sound?” “Sounds perfect, Dad.” “I tell you what, I’ve got some bottles of Guinness I won in a raffle at Christmas. Four of them, I think. How about we break those open later, by way of celebration?” “That’d be grand.”

“Were you off out for a road test?” “Yes, I was.” “Well, off you go then. Ride safe, lad.” The bike… sorry, the chopper fired first time (of course), and Martin turned the high ’bars, and steered the long forks round the side of the house and on to the road. That’d take a bit of getting used to. Best take it easy. Hope that if something went wrong no one’d be watching. So far so good. He headed towards the bypass, and picked up speed. Two things: firstly, riding the bike sitting upright felt very strange and, as he went faster, he could feel the air resistance on his chest. Secondly, he was no longer sitting on the bike – he was sitting in it. He rode past the British Leyland dealer’s showroom, and looked at his reflection in the window. He looked radically different. It wasn’t like riding a horse any longer (which’s what he’d always thought before). It was hard to tell where his own body ended and the bike began. Him and the bike were one. He thought of going into town, and catching up with the other greebos – at this time on a Saturday they’d be in the Wimpy with their bikes all lined up outside. He decided against it. Martin wasn’t sure that he was a greebo any more.

STEVEN MYATT ILLUSTRATIONS BY

LOUISE LIMB

NOTE: FINGERS ALKER WAS A

REAL PERSON. HE REALLY DID GO FOR A JOB IN A PLATING FACTORY WEARING BAGGY OVERALLS, A

BIG COAT, AND WALKING WITH A LIMP. STOCKPORT, ABOUT 1970. HE MADE A FORTUNE DOING CHROME PLATING ON THE SLY. HE GOT FIRED THE DAY HE FORGOT WHICH LEG HE LIMPED WITH. TRUE STORY.