Where there’s a wheel there’s a way!

One of the pleasures of reading the OBM is finding a reference in an article or letter that triggers fond personal memories of times ago. For instance, in November, we had Colyn Thomas recounting getting his Reliant on to the Isle of Man ferry.

In 1967 my wife-to-be and I were participating in Ken Craven’s (he of motorcycle luggage fame) annual Continental ‘Party-Tour’. The route was plotted by his wife, Mollie, who liked to get a bit of sea travel in during her tours. So, overland to Venice, overnight stop at a hotel and then to the docks, where bikes were craned on to the open foredeck of a Yugoslavian ship that regularly plied between Venice and Dubrovnic with several ports of call en route.

Arriving at Dubrovnic, disembarkation was to be from amidships via two long planks, there being no crane facility. There were three sidecar outfits in the party and, by spacing the planks apart to suit each outfit’s track, they were safely offloaded. It was down a fearsome gradient to the jetty. The planks were then put side to side and the solos wheeled off.

One vehicle remained – a Reliant. I can’t remember which model but the driver, Bob Kilby, had previously toured on a solo motorcycle. The two planks together were too narrow for the track of the Reliant but put the planks apart and the single front wheel was unsupported. But, as the old maxim says, where there’s a will there’s a way. The front wheel was run on to a plank and the Reliant skewed sideways behind it. With a fair bit of muscle power adding support and directional control, the Reliant was brought, crablike, ashore.

On an earlier Party-Tour I had met another couple, Pam and Jack Smith. I stayed in contact with Jack until he passed away in 2019. Like Len Ede’s father (see October’s OBM Star Letter), Jack went ashore with a Royal Enfield ‘Flea’ on D-Day, also as part of an AA unit. So, as I read Len’s star letter I felt that I was hearing Jack’s experiences all over again, except that after Jack got ashore he didn’t revert to another motorcycle but was given a 30cwt truck and drove the battery commander about, looking for suitable sites for their 3.7-inch Vickers AA guns. He then used the truck for fetching ammunition and other supplies.