The Brian Halbert Collection
On September 15, 2022, Leominster auctioneer Brightwells will be offering for sale a rather special collection of motorcycles, all of which belonged to Brian Halbert who passed away last year.
Brian’s daughter has given some insight into this collection, recalling that Brian – who was just 13 years of age when the Second World War broke out – became a motorcycle despatch rider for the Civil Defence as soon as he was old enough, riding his own bike and taking messages and papers across his bombed-out home city of Bristol. This was a dangerous business with burning buildings and huge bomb craters, invisible to motorcyclists in the darkened streets.
On leaving school he served as an apprentice at Llewellin’s Engineering, learning his early engineering skills, before he was called up in 1947. He joined the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers based in Yorkshire, repairing guns, planes and tanks and getting them back to the front line as soon as possible. (He also put his fine engineering know-how and steady hand to ‘adjusting’ the trigger on the Sergeant Major’s pistol for shooting competitions!)
After the war, he went to work briefly at Rolls-Royce and then at Bristol Metal Spraying and Welding Company in Bristol where he was chief inspector, responsible for signing off highly technical jobs such as build-up work on the fins or strakes inside Rolls-Royce Pegasus engines and specialist coatings for the water cooling systems of nuclear power stations.
Brian joined the Somerset Section of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club at its founding in 1960 and current members will recognise many of the machines presented at the auction.
He bought motorcycles and parts in bike sales and jumbles, garage clearances, from other collectors, friends and fellow enthusiasts over many years. One was quite literally dug out of a cellar and another came all the way from Australia via New Zealand. Generally, Brian would renovate several at once, as it took a long time to gather any information and spare parts he didn’t already have. When he couldn’t get hold of parts from any other source, he would machine them himself on his lathe and make bits and pieces for other people too. The moment when each bike was started for the first time was one of immense pride and satisfaction.
Brian bought and restored these bikes to ride them, not simply to collect them. He rode out with his local VMCC section most weekends during the 1960s, 70s and 80s and was still riding into his eighties, finally hanging up his oilskins in 2009.
It’s rather an eclectic collection, ranging from a 1941 Norman Nippy autocycle to a 1955 Triumph Thunderbird via a ’24 Triumph Ricardo and, among others, a handful of various Douglas models. Go to www. brightwells.com to find out more.