THAT CAPS IT ALL
This is our father Ralph Scudder, looking rather pleased with himself and wearing his Post Office messenger hat at a rakish angle, pictured sometime in the mid-1930s aboard what we think is his BSA. He used to tell stories of himself and his mates riding flat-out past Harold Daniel’s garage in South London in the hope of being ‘noticed’. During the war he rode various bikes in the army, including a Norton Big-four, but back in Civvy Street he never owned a bike bigger than a 150cc Bantam. Nonetheless, he gave tremendous support to us, his three sons, when we started riding and throughout most of our racing careers, and was treasurer of the Bantam Racing Club for several years. All three of us still have our bikes (now classics), with the youngest of us yet to retire from the track. Between us we had something like 80 seasons of racing, which we owe to the young guy on the Post Office bike who, he conceded, probably failed to impress Harold Daniel!
Derek, Robin & Kevin Scudder
Hi Kevin, this is a bit of an unusual one. The bike is certainly a BSA; before the Bantam, BSA had a long history of selling 250cc side-valve bikes to the GPO. EGU 983 is a London number issued in summer 1938, suggesting the bike is the new C10 model, introduced that year. But identification is complicated by the legshields hiding the engine. Nice anecdote about Harold Daniel’s shop; I think Ralph would have had to try very hard to impress the TT star, as the BSA was probably flat-out at 50! Cheers, Rick