A wheely rough journey!
A trip to the Isle of Man for the TT is always an adventure, but, as Jack Squirrell explains, for him, the trip home turned out to be as memorable as the racing had been!
It was a fabulous week of broken records on the famous TT course with Mike Hailwood, otherwise known as ‘Mike the Bike,’ being the first man to win three TTs in the same week. My first visit to the Isle of Man in 1961 had been a memorable and breathtaking experience of the British heroes of motorcycle racing coming out on top against their international opponents. Sadly, it was now time to go home. We got up early and joined the hundreds of other bikers on the dockside in Douglas to catch the 9am ferry to Liverpool. Doreen and I had been married a couple of years and our only form of transport was our motorcycle, a 600cc AJS twin, fitted with a sidecar to make life a little more comfortable for Doreen and with the added advantage of plenty of room for luggage. It was a dreary morning, there was a sea mist and a fine drizzle had been falling since we left our B&B. By midday we were wondering what was going on; the incoming ferry hadn’t arrived and nobody knew why. There was no communication from the port authorities, although there were rumours of bad weather out at sea. The Irish Sea is notorious for its very rough and stormy weather, which made the journey to Liverpool even more uncomfortable as the prevailing wind and waves hit the ferries at an angle of about forty-five degrees. This causes a very uncomfortable rolling and dipping action, the worst possible combination for those poor souls who suffer from seasickness. Douglas Bay is huge and it’s difficult to judge how bad or rough the open sea is beyond its sheltering effect from the winds. When the incoming ferry eventually arrived at four in the afternoon, we were horrified to see the state of the passengers as they filed slowly past the long queue of bikes. Greengrey faces and hunched shoulders told of a passage across a turbulent sea! At long last they started loading the bikes. It was a precarious operation as there was no facility to drive onto the ferry and so each vehicle, car or motorcycle had to be lifted onto the deck by a dockside crane. Of course, the crane drivers had been at the task every day of the week for years and, in theory, knew exactly what they were doing. That was until it came to my motorbike and sidecar… All the seas surrounding the British Isles are tidal and, depending on the time of the day, the deck of the ferry could be below the dockside by 15 feet or more. Quite a drop! The foot passengers were reluctantly filing down the gangway onto the main deck. It was low tide so the bikes were being lowered onto the open deck; the canvas slings were slotted between the spokes of the wheels of the solo bikes and it was up to the rider to assist at deck level with his machine as it touched down. I waited on the deck as my bike and sidecar were lifted off the dockside and swung across the deck above our heads. The outfit was halfway down when the extra loop around the sidecar wheel slipped, freeing the sidecar to swing down like a pendulum. The wheel hit the deck with a loud crunch, buckling under the sidecar as most of the spokes separated from their nipples. “Oh bugger!” It was just after five in the evening, the rain was falling ever more steadily from a darkening sky and we had the prospect of at least a five hour journey across a rough Irish Sea to Liverpool. I rushed up to the bridge to confront the captain. He was not sympathetic to my predicament or my complaints and said the responsibility was the dock authority and the crane driver in particular. Arriving in the middle of the night in Liverpool with a broken wheel was beginning to look like a worrying reality. It was Saturday, there would be nothing open, nowhere to buy spares to repair the damaged wheel. A decision had to be made. I told the captain I was going into town to see if one of the bike dealers was still open. He replied that, as soon the boat was loaded and ready, he would sail, regardless of whether I was back or not! Doreen had been standing by the bike and some of our fellow bikers had gathered round with offers of help. I told her my plan, grabbed one of the damaged spokes and dashed for the gangway. I ran all the way into Douglas town with a vague memory of a bike dealers’ premises just off the high street. Yes, there it was! But a bloke was just pulling down the shutters. “Just in time.” I exclaimed! “Too late! We’re shut” he replied! My heart dropped, but fortunately money talked although it took a day’s pay to change his mind. He showed me to the back of the shop where the spares were stored, pointed to a rack containing bins of spokes and sai: “Help yourself mate and don’t hang about.” It didn’t take long to sort through the bins and find what I needed. I grabbed about three dozen spokes of the right length with nipples to match. Then off I sprinted back towards the harbour. As I rounded the corner of the dock, three blasts from the ship’s horn roared loudly into the evening sky, mingling eerily with the cries from the gulls circling above the harbour. True to his word the captain was not waiting for the last (and now desperate) passenger to board. I had no choice but to leap the growing gap as the ship pulled away from the dockside. It was about 15 feet down onto the deck below and I hit the wooden deck with a bone jarring jolt, but I’d made it. And nothing was broken! Doreen was still keeping an eye on our bike, but was more than relieved when I suddenly appeared out of breath with a bunch of spokes in my hand. God knows how she would have coped had I missed the boat. In no time at all, a group of anonymous helpers had the sidecar propped up with some blocks of wood under the chassis and the wonky wheel off its axle. Suddenly the ship gave a tremendous heave. We’d hit open sea and left the shelter of the bay. I looked up towards Douglas town – what on earth was it doing up there? It was suspended at an angle of forty-five degrees in mid-air! Of course, it was an optical illusion, the ferry was being chucked about like a cork in a bucket and the horizon was tilting up and down as the ship fought its way out to open sea. Within about half-an-hour I was alone, my helpers disappearing as they were overcome with ‘mal de mer.’ Doreen was sitting on the long bench seat that was bolted to the side of cabin wall, or should I say hanging on for dear life. I was crouched, cross-legged on the deck, trying to remove the damaged spokes from the hub of the sidecar wheel. It was an almost hopeless task in the gale force storm that sent horizontal needles of salty spray onto my bare hands and face. The storm was unbelievable! Every now and then a giant wave would send a shudder through the entire ship, The job of repairing the wheel seemed endless and I began to lose track of time. There were a few people on deck, and it came as a shock when the sailors checking the lifeboats started throwing up over the side of the ship. Surely it couldn’t be that bad? But it was! Doreen was looking groggy but she was hanging on and hadn’t yet thrown up. Midnight came and went, the sea continued its relentless battering of the ferry and there was no sign of land. By then, the deck was almost deserted, barring a few poor souls puking over the side. I’d been concentrating so hard on my task that my bodily functions had been ignored and I needed a cup of tea and a pee. A pee first, so, for the first time since setting foot on the boat, I went inside and down below. What a sight met my eyes! The men’s toilet was an inch deep in vomit and the smell of sick was horrific. The sit-on toilets were occupied with the doors open; each presumably with a head down its pan, for all I could see were backsides and the soles of their boots. Burly, hairy bikers were praying to God for death rather than face another hour of torture being dealt out to us by the raging sea. Dawn was breaking and the weather began to calm as land came into sight. It was a wonderful relief to see the City of Liverpool. The spokes of the damaged wheel were now all replaced and it was just a matter of replacing the tyre and tube, then filling it with air from the trusty foot pump that was nestling in the boot of our sidecar. A couple of my helpers had returned for the last half hour of our journey. Until then, it had been without comparison the worst journey of my life. Thank God that somewhere in my genes was something protecting me from the sickness of the sea! As we disembarked, one of my helpers decided he would vent some of his pent up wrath on the captain of the ferry. He invaded the captain’s bridge and told him that he would like to stick his boat up an orifice that it certainly wouldn’t fit! The crossing had taken almost 12 hours, more than double the normal time for the journey. By the time we disembarked I was so knackered that I had to stop at the first lay-by we encountered and stretch out along the bike for a well-deserved kip, my head on the pillion seat with my legs dangling over the handlebars. What a journey!