HENRY COLE
TV presenter of many shows involving old machinery, who plans to keep the flame alive as we enter the electric age
NO TWO DAYS are the same for me. I don’t have a routine; I’m always working and travelling. I run the production company that makes all the shows I front and many more besides. I’m currently making 50 programmes. My family is on holiday, but I’m not. Too busy.
I come from a long line of eccentrics. W hen I was eight, one particularly bonkers great-uncle showed me his collection of old British bikes. Their sight and smell were heavenly; I was hooked. By 13 I was illicitly riding my mate’s 250cc Honda. The first time I ended up in a hedge, but the rest is history.
I’ve been in TV for years, fronting shows such as Junk and Disorderly; Find It, Fix It, Flog It; Shed and Buried and The Motorbike Show. My childhood love of motorcycles and cars transcended everything, so to fulfil that love alongside my other passion – TV – was a dream come true. I’m descended from Prime Minister William Gladstone and was Eton-educated, but I’d always had a strong sense of individuality.
From an early age I had a feeling of not wanting to be a number, and I wasn’t happy with elitism. It’s taken years of therapy to sort me out.
At 18 all I was interested in was getting a rush and taking drugs. Not happy with traditional career options, I wanted to do something adrenalin-fuelled and glamorous in which I could travel the world and meet people. TV was the answer. Having dabbled with dispatch riding and session drumming, I started as a news sound recordist and became a cameraman in the early 1980s. I haven’t stopped filming and trekking the world since, mainly on two wheels. I ditched the heroin long ago.
How lucky am I to be able to convey these passions to TV viewers? I’ve had many fabulous experiences – I don’t know how many miles I’ve ridden for 23 series of World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides – but ultimately I’m just a geezer in a shed, bumbling about with old bikes and cars, and wheeling and dealing automobilia. That’s what I love. My pal Sammy [Lovegrove,
Henry’s partner in old-stuff shenanigans] and I just want to sit outside our camper with a cuppa at an autojumble and talk old-man shit. There’s a lot of integrity; that’s what we do, whether or not the camera is rolling.
I have around 50 classic cars, bikes and tractors at my place in Oxfordshire, and when I’m at home I love tinkering with them. I love anything that’s weird and funky, but I don’t get too attached and I’d probably sell any of them in the right circumstances. However, I’d never part with my Honda C50 Cub; I used to take my mum, who’s now 92, on the back to the village shop. Ditto my 1947 Willys Jeep, in which I often go out for a pub Sunday lunch with my wife Janie and sons Charlie and Tom. It’s the most wonderful experience. Mavis, my ’47 Norton ES2/Model 18 ‘bitsa’, is another keeper. I ride it everywhere.
Some mates and I have New Hudson Autocycles. We head off along the lanes to the pub, and our rule is you can’t go so fast that you can’t talk to the others, so we average 15mph. On a fine day, it’s glorious. But I also love straight-line speed; I hold three vintage Land Speed Records.
I’ve ridden and driven electric vehicles and they’re unbelievable, for a short time. But what about all the stuff you get with internalcombustion classics? Individuality, lifestyle, camaraderie of like-minded souls, making other people smile, tinkering, tuning, smell and noise, fulfilment; never mind the relationship with them, your love and passion for their character and history, how they feel? They’re spiritually, mentally and physically satisfying. You don’t get that with anything electric.
I understand that EVs are the way to go, that they’ll apparently save the planet. But in 20 years’ time will I really be in a shed on one of my TV shows, saying: ‘Ooh, just look at that battery… it’s an Exide, don’t you know?’ I doubt it. For my part, I’ve just bought a little 25-acre farm, which I’m going to turn into a wildlife sanctuary. Meanwhile, I’ll remain a staunch petrolhead. The future is electric, but the past is where I like to live.
‘ULTIMATELY, I’M JUST A GEEZER IN A SHED, BUMBLING ABOUT WITH OLD BIKES AND CARS, WHEELING AND DEALING’
TO FIND OUT MORE, see www.henrycole.tv and Henry’s memoir ‘A Biker’s Life: Misadventures On (and Off) Two Wheels’.