A young man at Revetts

Revetts! Yes, I remember it well. I worked in the cycle shop in Berners Street in the mid-1950s during school holidays and at weekends for 5/- a day wages.

Ray and Eddie Revett were in charge of the cycle shop and Frank the adjoining motorcycle shop where my brother Eric worked. ‘Skeet’ was an elderly odd-job man who removed the split pin retaining a wheel of the scrap collector’s cart containing Revetts’ cast-offs. Ball bearings, old chains, rims, spokes et al were deposited on the busy St Matthews Street. Eddie guessed Skeet’s involvement and made him help pick it all up.

Road improvements necessitated the demolition of the Berners Street premises, hence the move to Clarkson Street (as mentioned in OBM April) and, ultimately, Norwich Road (OBM March). Microcars were sold and serviced there. After a road test of an Isetta, a mechanic decided to do a handbrake turn in the shop’s unsurfaced car park. Unfortunately, he rolled it over the bonnet of Geoff Revett’s Rover which was badly damaged, whereas the Isetta was hardly marked!

Revetts also had a branch at Stowmarket from where a BSA Bantam D7 that I recently owned (EBJ 377C) was sold when new.

Blue – your father probably competed in the same 1960s scrambles as my brother Adrian (expert) and I (junior). I’m still riding old bikes and driving a ‘Schmitt.

Barry, I am sure I remember Dad taking me to your brother’s garage in – and this is stretching my memory a bit as I was very little! – Bucklesham. Would that have been right? Blue

Long before Barry’s time, the Revetts motorcycle shop in St Matthews Street, Ipswich suffered a huge fire. As you can see from this 1938 photograph, staff dodged around the firemen to rescue as many motorcycles as they could.