A thank you to Dick and his M21
My thank yous (Editorial, April
2022) stem from when I was an engineering apprentice at Salisbury Transmissions, in Witton, Birmingham. I started there in 1962 at the Birfield Group’s training school at Hardy Spicer’s in Erdington. Once we moved back to our parent companies after that first year we were transferred from section to section within the factory which produced car axles for the likes of Jaguar, Jensen, Volvo, Maserati and differential gears for Alvis.
One section I really enjoyed was the Research and Development where they set up and tested completed axles on large motorised rigs. I got on extremely well with one of the fitters in there, a man called Dick (sorry, but his surname escapes me). My transport to work at that time was a Bantam (WOK 820). Dick had been a regular motorcyclist but was, by then, a car driver. I can’t recall just how the conversation went but it seems he had a motorbike and sidecar he no longer needed or wanted and he offered it to me – for free!
I accepted his kind offer but I had no idea how it would get to my house about 15 miles from his place (in Tamworth, I think). The following weekend it somehow transpired that another friend of mine, Tony (new Norton 650SS) who worked at Greaves the butchers in Glebe Farm went to collect it for me with the aid of another friend. The outfit duly arrived outside my house on a Sunday but, as I had never ridden one before, these two friends took me to Drayton Manor Park near Tamworth and taught me how to handle it on the grass there. This was many years before the venue became a theme park!
The bike was a BSA M21 hitched to a child/adult chair. The reg was POC 347 which now, according to the DVLA, adorns a 2019 red Land Rover! I had the outfit for some time and it was used as my commuting steed and fishing tackle transport. So, belated (although I must have said something back then) thanks go to both Dick, who I suspect may no longer be alive and to Tony for their kindness to me.
I was eventually able to pass the good deed and the steed onwards to a neighbour in Howden Place, Mr Bates at number six. He was a property repairer and used an outfit with a box on to transport his tools and ladders around. Unfortunately, he was knocked off it and the outfit was badly damaged, along with a broken leg for Mr Bates.
When he was fit again, I gave him the BSA and sidecar which, with the box fitted to it, became his workhorse until it was stolen from outside his house. That was the end of the bike as the thieves ran it dry of oil and when it was found hidden in a garage it had seized, never to rise again.