Les Perry – Preston WildCats – Memory of an era: circa 1978

Scootering in the 1970s was more of a necessity than a hobby, as your scooter was most likely to be your main (if not only) mode of transport for getting to work. The pleasure part came at the weekends when we would go on rideouts to various places like Blackpool. Clubs were forming fast during this period, at first the clubs were just referred to by their location – ‘Preston SC’ etc. – then later became known by both a location and a club name (e.g. Preston WildCats SC, Lytham Vagabonds SC etc.); it was great. We would all chip in and pay subs towards a club van to go on rallies with, which, while it was meant for breakdowns etc., often became where people slept as well. No nice warm B&Bs for us back then! The rallies of the time were mainly just the national rallies, i.e. Morecambe, Scarborough, Rhyl, Skegness etc., but they were not the big, organised affairs of today, no... everything was done by word of mouth back then from one club to another, and it didn’t seem to be about making money, more for enjoyment. Perhaps that’s just my rose-tinted spectacles though. The LCGB was around back then, but they organised gymkhanas and such, they were not nearly as organised back then and not really involved in the big rallies so much. As for the scooters, most were bog standard by comparison to modern machines, with just moderate amounts of tuning, which were nearly all DIY jobs, and most paint jobs were the same, usually done with spray cans and tape. Even the really good scooters seemed affordable and achievable, there were no ‘chequebook scooterists’ back then. At the time, we didn’t class ourselves as Mods, but as scooter boys who rode scooters and were into Northern Soul. For us, Mods were the original 1960s scooter riders, and also then those who made a return with the film Quadrophenia when it became a fashion trend and highly commercialised, and suddenly every teenager had a scooter and a parka! lol Off the back of the film though, scootering was helped to keep going as it had been on a slow decline for a while, but although a lot of new blood emerged in the early 1980s, this also was the time when a lot of original scooter boys gave up. On the whole I had the best times in the 70s with my friends and our scooters, it seems now that some people just want to have an all-singing and dancing scooter at whatever cost but then keep them hidden away. Would I like to go back? Yes of course, but that’s not possible so I will settle for me and my scooter going on a rideout etc. and getting that feeling of freedom back. I love the custom shows and seeing the new ideas and technology, but definitely for me... it’s got to be ridden not hidden. Les Perry.