When TCM went into reverse gear

With reference to last month’s letter from Dave Wilson (‘Have you Cottoned on?’) I well remember this particular issue of The Classic Motorcycle as it momentarily made me think that Cotton motorcycles had their foot brake on the offside of their machines, a fact that I had been totally unaware of.

However, on closer scrutiny, I noticed that Villiers now cast their name in reverse on the chaincase, so the next step was to think what the date was. April 1? No. Clearly the printers had got the negative reversed. Well, this left little impact on me, but I seem to recall that, in the background across the River

Severn, we see pictured Worcester Cathedral, so any readers of the magazine that also worshipped at the cathedral must certainly have had a brief surge of the power of the Lord if he were capable of deconstructing the cathedral overnight and rebuilding it in reverse image!

Well done to everyone who realised that somehow the image had been reversed for the cover of The Classic Motorcycle. It might have been 34 years ago but we thought it was appropriate for our April letters page! Ed.