From Bantam boy to Speedtwin tearaway: Part 3
This month’s chapter of Peter Jenkins’ memoir finds him working for British Steel, going on holiday to Europe and becoming the father of three fine daughters, but still riding the Triumph.
After leaving university, I started my first permanent job with British Steel Stainless in Sheffield as a graduate trainee in production management. I had tried without success to find a job connected with motorbikes; I even wrote to my favourite magazine, Bike, to enquire about a job.
We moved first to a horrible little flat in the student area of Sheffield and six months later bought our first house in Rotherham. To help pay the mortgage (the house cost £9000!), we took in lodgers for the first few years. These were all graduate trainees at British Steel so we got on well, and two of them had bikes. Tony was a little unlucky with his bike; he bought a brand-new Jubilee Bonneville but it seized on him due to swarf in the oil pump (a sad reflection of the state of the British industry at the time). He had it repaired but not long afterwards hit a sheep on the Snake Pass!
Another lodger, Ian, had a Honda Dream 250. One winter’s morning we set off before him as I was first taking Chris to work in Sheffield. The roads were covered in ice so I was riding carefully; we came over the brow of a hill and saw several cars all over the place at the bottom of the hill. We had to stop before we hit the cars, but the slightest touch on the brakes locked the wheels, so we ran against the kerb until we slowly toppled over. After picking ourselves and the bike up, Chris ran back up the hill to try to stop Ian before he came over the top of the hill but it was too late! We enjoyed watching him do the same as us (schadenfreude?). It cost Ian £25 for parts to fix the Honda, but just a few smacks with a hammer to straighten out the Triumph!
During training at BSC (British Steel Corporation, not Billy Smarts Circus as we called it!), I had to spend a month at its works in Panteg, near Cwmbran, South Wales and the bike let me down on the M50 near Newent. I had to push it to a filling station off the motorway and leave it there with a holed piston until I could arrange for it to be carried back to Sheffield on the back of a steel wagon.
In the years before we got our first car, the old Triumph was used to carry shopping, timber for DIY projects and even a large TV set on the rear carrier. Sadly, both the stainless steel plants have been shut down and demolished.
Travelling abroad on the Triumph
Our first (and only) foreign trip on the old Triumph started with a breakdown on the way to Felixstowe, but it was only a loose wire. From Zeebrugge we headed through France to Switzerland and over the Alps via the St Gotthard pass. It being August, it lashed it down with storms that killed 20 people throughout Europe. It was wonderful to leave the Alps behind and go into Northern Italy; the sun came out and it finally got dry and warmer. I unzipped my leather jacket to keep cool and immediately got stung by a wasp – doh! We stayed at a campsite on a beach near Genoa for our third night and realised we were really ‘abroad.’ Italians on holiday were completely different from English people – tents squeezed into every space and very close to each other, and the noise of hundreds of people having a good time and all talking at once was terrific. We felt very shy and British!
The following day we were away early and really enjoyed the coast road with its tunnels and viaducts; the views were superb. On to Rome via Florence, Pisa and Siena. We got some photos in Siena and Pisa – the usual ones next to the leaning tower – but we didn’t have the time to visit the glories of Florence (and it was too hot!). We did spend a little bit of time in the suburbs of Florence though, as the clutch cable snapped. I fitted the spare, always a messy business as the gearbox outer cover has to come off, and some oil went on the road. Three old Italian gentlemen sitting on a roadside bench had watched the whole operation with interest and were kind enough to applaud when I’d finished!
We got to Rome in four days (which we’d find difficult nowadays, despite having more padding on our bums), finding a good campsite about eight miles from the city centre. The campsite was run by Australians and had everything we needed and we spent a week immersed in the history and culture of Rome. We must go again one day, but I wouldn’t be brave enough to cope with Roman drivers now. While visiting St Peters we were amazed to find it really packed; we discovered that the Pope had just died and was lying in state in the Basilica. We went on a coach trip to Naples, Sorrento and Capri (I lost my bottle and didn’t want to ride nearly 300 miles extra!); it was a grand day out.
Shortly after setting off on the return journey, we came across a broken-down bike by the side of the autostrada. It was an almost new Kawasaki Z900 ridden by an Italian merchant seaman who could speak a little English. His rear chain had snapped and put a hole in the crankcase, losing his engine oil. He lived about 20 miles away so we decided to give him a tow home. Imagine the scene: an old Triumph,
two up and loaded with camping gear, towing a new Kawasaki with a length of washing line. We got as far as the next toll booths where the incredulous police wouldn’t let us go any further – health and safety nonsense! We left him there, he was quite near home and grateful for our efforts. This must rank as one of the bike’s finest hours.
We went through the Mont
Blanc tunnel which seemed to go on forever and spent the night at a very clean campsite near Geneva. I remember really enjoying the Route Nationals in France – no tolls and a great sensation of speed with all the poplars rushing past. It was also fun to roar through sleepy French villages while the locals were dozing in the sun. We paid a flying visit to Paris; we’d no idea how to navigate anywhere in the city so the only place we visited was the Eiffel Tower – it was the only place I could see to head for. The last visit was a pilgrimage to Flanders and the Menin Gate at Ypres. The cemeteries were very moving. We met some lovely people of several nationalities on the trip; it’s so much easier to make friends when younger. Home again and back to work after nearly 3000 miles.
Family life follows
We bought our first car in 1979, after Chris had passed her driving test
(at the first attempt – a fluke!), a 1966 Mini for £50, and had our first fabulous daughter the following year. There followed two more wonderful daughters in the next five years. There were to be no more long motorbike trips for a while. I continued to use the bike for work every day except when renovating it, then I had to use an old bicycle that I’d inherited from a lodger.
The Triumph got a smart rebuild when we lived in Rotherham with 12v electrics, stainless wheels and mudguards and a stove enamelled frame. We moved from Rotherham to Poynton in 1982 for me to join my brother’s road haulage firm. I carried on using the bike for work and also for occasional longer trips to our southern depot near Bedford. I would take wagons there with the bike on the back and return on the bike. Most of our vehicles were fitted with lorry mounted cranes so there was no problem loading the bike. I would also use the bike to run out to wagons with simple breakdowns like burst crane hydraulic pipes. During this period, I sold the original registration number (pre suffix); I wish I hadn’t now, but I got £240 for it and the cash was more useful than the vanity.
With three young children we were always looking for ways to earn extra money, and one way was folding Old Bike Mart newspapers, together with various inserts, and sealing them in their envelopes.
This was when OBM was in its early years and I can’t remember how we got the job, but Ken Hallworth (the founder) lived locally. I got a free copy, but the girls weren’t keen on the job!
I continued to use the old Triumph daily for work all year round. Chris used the car so I had no choice and I remember a few unpleasant trips in the winters. Our haulage yard was in Woodford, only four miles from home, so I didn’t have a long journey. The airfield at Woodford (the old Avro/BAE factory, now demolished) had a weather station and often recorded very low temperatures due to cold air coming down off the Pennines. On a couple of occasions, it was the coldest place in the country at minus 17C, and once I had to ride two miles in first gear before the gearchange unfroze! A frozen throttle cable was common when the temperature was lower than minus 5C, leading to some exciting rides on icy roads.
I never failed to get to work though I was a little late once after battling through four inches of fresh snow; other staff had no excuse for not making it to work in their cars!
But I was last away from work one dark and icy night and went flat on my back as I approached the bike with the keys in my hand. The good news was that the helmet saved my head from damage but the half a dozen eggs in my haversack didn’t fare too well, and it took me about 30 minutes to find the keys that
I’d dropped!