Ragtag and Bobtail
I’ve recently been disposing of a couple of bikes that belonged to brother Bill, stuff he’d obtained over many years from all four corners of the North West.
As I attempt to fettle each one into a reasonably complete item with functioning lights and controls, and then collect the relevant paperwork to support its lineage, I’m minded of similar events that took place on a daily basis when we had our little shop.
In the early days we kept a ragtag collection of scoots in varying states of readiness. To do battle on the greasy roundabouts and railway line riddled network of roads throughout Trafford Park was a test for anything. Riding a 20-yearold Matchless 250 with a top-box full of swag on those skating rinks required great ability and a healthy dose of good luck. The main centres of employment were historically concentrated in the area around the docks, a stone’s throw from a place where I believe they play the game where 20-odd blokes chase around after an inflated pig’s bladder. The other place, a couple of miles north of the Park, was at Agecroft, situated on the banks of the Irwell. It had that great resource essential to any post Victorian industrial centre: an accommodating river.
Within half-a-mile or so were three significant industrial giants, Pilkington’s tile works, the chloride battery plant, and Magnesium Elektron where much of the magnesium used in the aeroplane manufacturing industry during the large disturbance was processed. My mum told me about ‘The Mag’ lighting up like a huge incandescent Christmas tree after an unfortunately accurate bombing escapade.
These large manufacturing plants, along with those in the Park, relied on thousands of bods clad in boiler suits to keep the wheels turning, and likewise, those same BSCBS relied on us (and many other similar bike shops) to keep their wheels going. This is fine if A, they are in good nick to start with and B, if they are serviced, lubricated and generally handled with a little care. But a pre-requisite of heading ‘A’ above is far easier to attain if the subject is new-ish. Most of ours weren’t. In fact they were generally old-ish, frequently 10 years old and sometimes significantly older. Nick, sadly, tends to diminish with age, it’s the law. In the case of heading ‘B’, well, those BSCBS, possibly used to handling a five-ton cupola of molten lead or possibly hobbing a 20-foot diameter gear on one of the biggest gear cutting machines in Europe, were not entirely sympathetic to a loose gear lever on a C15 or a baggy drive chain on an old Panther. And so when one of the BSCBS entered our little shop it was essential to match the machine with the new potential owner. Not much point in balancing a 17-stone Skunge Wacker (I made that up, but they always had weird names for their particular area of expertise) on a Puch Moped if we could avoid it.
Better to perch him on a Rub-a-dub-dub (Tiger Cub) or a C15 (BSA 250cc single, forebear of many more BSA singles via 350cc B40 and its shiny sibling the SS90 all the way up to 660cc in later CCM moto-crossers, over double the capacity and three times the power output!),
It was essential to ask, with sensitivity of course, if the bike might be loaded up a little on the return from work, possibly ith some liberated flanges, or an occasional lump of phosphor bronze: and would there be just a single BSCB on board or might he be joined by another one of similar girth?
This wasn’t simply a selling exercise, it was a psychological and physiological evaluation. The consequences of plonking two big blokes and half a hundred weight of clobber, slummy and other assorted debris on a Puch Cheetah were none too appealing, having said that there was the occasional one who took huge liberties and got away with it for years.
One such bought a Durkopp scooter off us and the combination of disc wheels (no spokes) and German build quality gave up a workhorse that just kept on giving, poor thing.
But most of them suffered greatly. Reliability was always a problem, and pile on that a helping of neglect (these blokes were working 60 hours a week in hideous circumstances and were hardly likely to spend Sunday morning adjusting the tappets and topping up the battery. Tappets: bits that rattle and open and shut the valves...you don’t need to know; likewise battery topping up, doesn’t happen now, hopefully), plus a toxic atmosphere of coal dust, corrosive everything topped off with an endless rainy season (it always rained in Trafford Park then) didn’t leave the poor timorous beasties much chance of survival, and then they’d come in and buy another, usually leaving the earlier version to gently expire behind the coal shed.