Pete Kelly recalls countless hours browsing through Mortons’ priceless motorcycling archive and looking up prints that were originally used in The Motor Cycle and Motor Cycling before being stored carefully in cardboard boxes for decades, a large number stretching back between 90 and 100 years. Many have been digitised with great care and are available for sale – so why not see what’s available by visiting mortonsarchive.com?
During the five and a half years in which I was privileged to edit Old Bike Mart, I spent many days in Mortons’ photographic archive turning up images for all kinds of motorcycling features, one of the most fascinating being the part played by sidecar outfits in a dazzling variety of commercial adaptations, especially in the period between the wars.
Examining the instructions for publication on both the front and back of many such photographs before being handed over by subeditors to the skilled page make-up staff during the long-forgotten ‘hot metal’ era was like a history lesson in the evolution of newspaper and magazine production too.
Having been involved in journalism for more than 60 years, I well remember the Sunday evening press nights at Motor Cycling in the mid-1960s when rolls of film taken at sporting events all over the country would be collected from trains arriving at London’s main line stations and rushed to our offices just off Fleet Street.
These would be delivered immediately to our photographic lab so that, in the shortest possible time, we’d have full sets of contact prints from 24 or 36-exposure rolls of film, and on them we would highlight our choice of four or five images with a marker pen. These would come back as full-sized prints which we’d hold up to the light and, using a pencil, carefully crop out unwanted areas before adding the intended page number and order of choice.
By 1am, along with our rough page designs, sub-edited typewritten stories, headlines and captions, these would be on their way to our printers in Colchester, Essex, and by the time the editor, accompanied by a single member of staff (unless it was an exceptionally busy time such as a bank holiday weekend), arrived by train from Liverpool Street station at about 10am on Monday mornings, a number of page proofs would be ready to check. Everything would be cleared by tea-time, and the publication would be in newsagents’ shops by Wednesday morning – by which time we were already well on with the following week’s issue!
Most of the Mortons’ archive photographs that made it to publication have similar markings on the back, but many, especially up to the 1920s and 30s, also have white edging on the front, showing how a print should be
‘cut out,’ either precisely around a subject itself or as an oval or other shape. This gave page designers more scope to add variety in a picture spread, and some examples can be seen in the accompanying images.
Four years ago, with the help of our esteemed archivist Jane Skayman, I came across some outstanding images of sidecar outfits used as primary transport for a host of commercial adaptations from the very early years of the 20th century. In some cases, the images squeezed into the old box files had suffered over time to the point where simple folds had broken away completely, sometimes resulting in the loss of important areas of the print, but they told an amazing story of enterprise and inventiveness during tough times.
While pondering over what to do for this New Year feature, I consulted Jane once again and she kindly emailed me a fresh selection of sidecar images, which I have combined with others published in OBM during the last few years to give an enticing look at times gone by.
Sweeping chimneys, transporting farm animals to market and delivering fruit, vegetables, meat, fish or poultry to customers’ doors were just a few novel uses of the humble motorcycle combination, so let’s just sit back and allow the pictures, which I’ve captioned as fully as possible, to tell their own stories.
By the way, if you can identify some of the machines, or have memories of similar vehicles, why not let us know?
LEFT: Living out in the country in a humble farm cottage, the writer can still enjoy the warmth of a real fire, albeit with high-heat smokeless cobbles these days – but, when universal coal fires were the norm, if soot deposits lining the chimney breasts were allowed to build up to a dangerous level, and then someone ‘drew’ a fire too eagerly (perhaps with a spread from a broadsheet newspaper across the front of the fire grate), the soot would catch alight to truly sensational effect, with flames coming out of the chimney top like a roaring blowtorch that could be heard from streets away! The fire brigade often had to be called, so never look down on the humble chimney sweep, for he performed a vital service and often used a sidecar outfit like this to carry his rods and brushes. You can also see that the print has been ‘cut out’ for greater effect on the page.
ABOVE: The man behind these innovative machines, which were produced from 1921 until 1924, was Robert Owen Harper from Salford, a talented automotive engineer who had several patents to his name. He also had an eye for publicity, and audaciously entered two Runabouts, driven by himself and Armstrong Graham, in the 1922 Scottish Six Days Trial. Imagine the faces of the hardened competitors when the unconventional-looking tricycles bearing the numbers 82 and 83 turned up in Edinburgh for the weigh-in!
LEFT: Pictured in 1922, and marked up with crosses to ‘pull it out’ from the rest of the print, was this small Harper Runabout-based commercial three-wheeler advertising the ‘no water’ letter copier from the Manchester-based Roneo Ltd.
Truly a picture of times long gone by, this delightful greengrocer’s outfit that belonged to Bebe Bunting of Winchmore Hill and first took to the road in 1931, delivered fresh fruit and vegetables straight to customers’ doors. Note the small counter and on-board scales. The top left shows a portion of the photo missing – perhaps because of a broken-off fold.
Two ladies out for a ride on typical tall bicycles of the day stop to buy Italian-style ice creams from a magnificent outfit powered by a 1923 Brough Superior SS80 V-twin with a Montgomery front fork and BS cast-alloy silencer ends.
ABOVE: Dating back to 1932, this image shows The Covered Wagon, one of a fleet of combination-drawn delivery vans operated by the Liverpool branch of Daily Bread Ltd. The protective cover over the rider’s head was certainly novel, and almost resembles the crusty top of a well-baked loaf!
Few smells compare to that of freshly baked bread – and that must certainly have been the case whenever the lid of this immaculate delivery sidecar, seen outside the premises of Daren Bread, was opened.
A young lady wearing an immaculate white dairy coat hands over an old-fashioned pint of milk in a proper glass bottle with a smile to a customer in Pewsey, Wiltshire, in 1938. How much nicer than today’s dreary supermarket routine!
The ‘cut-out’ technique was certainly applied to this picture of painter and decorator Edgar Vickers’ outfit, with his paint buckets wedged between the rungs of his ladders. Sadly, very old photos like this could become brittle over many years of storage in cardboard boxes and bits would break off and at the back it looks as if this photograph might once have included an image of Edgar himself. What a shame!
Imagine transporting a full-grown beast to market in a built-up sidecar like this – but at least there’d be no chance of lifting on left-handers! Note once again the crosses signifying the ‘cut-out’ boundaries for publication.
How many cars have a ‘boot’ this big? With the white bits showing where to trim to, this is how a photograph would be sent down to the press room if a ‘cut-out’ was required. Unfortunately, no further details of this shoe-shaped outfit are available, but what a great job was made of it.
A sidecar could be turned into an eye-catching advertisement as salesmen did their rounds. How about this amazing adaptation in the shape of a giant Lodge spark plug in this undated photo?
As the badge on the front of the box sidecar shows, heating and plumbing engineers Crane-Bennett Ltd wisely joined the RAC when they took to the road with this 1924 Chater-Lea-powered combo. The warm full-length greatcoat, peaked cap and goggles were, of course, par for the course back then.
LEFT: Note the immaculately dressed rider’s careful “I’m looking straight ahead” pose in this Royal Mail photo of a then brand new
1914 New Hudson delivery combination.
Any ‘Transformers’ fan would be amazed by the transition from ordinary-looking sidecar to spacious caravan that was offered by the ‘Syvan’, which was a highlight of the 1956 Earls Court Show. The ever-enterprising Motor Cycling arranged the first press loan of an example of this unique newcomer provided they could find a ‘horse’ to attach it to, and that ‘horse’ turned out to be John Griffith’s 500cc Velocette Venom staff bike! Low-down grunt enabled the Venom to keep up a steady 55mph, and once a suitable camping site was found, it took just 15 minutes to assemble the caravan!
The original page designers asked for an oval shape when they received this old photo of a postman delivering a letter to a pig farm on his BSA combination.
Not exactly a sidecar outfit being used for commercial purposes – but who could resist using such a happy picture from almost 95 years ago of three young ladies enjoying a holiday on a BSA combination. The original caption simply stated: ‘Girls want to have fun’ – and who can argue with that?
LEFT: Photographed in June 1925, WatsonCairns’ spacious service outfit, with a simple fold-down ramp at the back, promised all spares and repairs, and rapid delivery of motorcycles. Claiming to be Yorkshire’s leading motorcycle specialists, the firm was based in Lower Briggate, Leeds. Back yards like this were a common feature of retail premises back then.
With the registration numbers AGO 551 to 554, these brightly painted BSA service outfits were in support of Sir Alan Cobham’s National Aviation Display Team. Cobham’s Flying Circus went on tour between 1932 and 1935, giving barnstorming displays and taking almost a million people on joy-ride flights in his fleet of up to 14 aeroplanes (that’s what they called them in those days). In 1921 he undertook a 5000-mile air tour of Europe during which he visited 17 cities in three weeks, and he even made it to Melbourne, Australia, in a De Havilland floatplane. His many other flying exploits have been marked in both books and films.
Tea bags? What are they? Two packages of Brooke Bond tea can just be made out inside this miniature delivery van that looks just like an old-fashioned tea caddy!
Before TV advertising came into vogue, many advertising campaigns were conducted on large street hoardings, and the bill-poster, with his ladders, paste buckets and pasting brush, was a familiar sight. In those days advertising was simple, to the point and effective, unlike the suggestive or overly-clever stuff we have to put up with on the small screen these days, and our towns and cities glowed colourfully with enamel signs and ever-changing billboard subjects. Such advertisements were so big that they often had to be made up in sections, and it was an immensely skilled job to paste them on squarely and without overlap – especially on a windy day. In this delightful picture from around the 1920s, children gather excitedly around the outfit of an enterprising bill-poster whose name is partially hidden.
With his cap turned rakishly backwards, the rider of this Ariel delivery outfit pulls out the top drawer to illustrate a novel way of delivering eggs without the risk of them becoming broken in transit.
A tasty-looking joint sticks out at the back of this Rudge Multi butcher’s outfit, the hand-painted sign on the back of which reads ‘J. Bausor, Purveyor of all kinds of English Meat of Best Quality’. The fact that he is still wearing his butcher’s apron suggests that he chopped up the meat on the spot.
BELOW: A young lady holds on to a little calf standing in the sidecar of a singlecylinder combination in this enchanting but undated picture.
LEFT: Ice cream outfits like this, along with two-stroke-engined trikes with swivelling box forecars, were around well into the 1950s until replaced by the likes of Mr Softee vans whose drivers played recorded jingles rather than shook the kind of hand bell that probably drew this eager group of boys gathered around R Moakes’s ice cream outfit from their homes in the first place.
Judging by the sidecar wheel spokes, this service outfit fielded by Triumph itself was brand new when this picture was taken in October 1924, showing some of the tools and service items that would have been essential in getting machines back on the road.