Editor's welcome

These strange times we're living in, has meant many of us have had to adapt to a new order. So this is the first issue of

The Classic Motorcycle I've ever done while working from home, not having once been into the Mortons offices at all during the duration of putting the magazine together.

This has of course brought about some issues with which to deal - the highlight of each edition is often searching through boxes of old pictures, looking for a gem with an interesting story to fill our archive photograph and classic camera pages. Luckily, I've a few in hand, or in my mind, so was able to solve this month's conundrum without too much consternation.

Likewise, at the moment, we still have a few features photographed and left over from either last year or the odd decent day at the start of this. But, from a purely selfish magazine point of view, we were just on the cusp of starting to fill the pot with features; I'd a particularly tasty Egli-Vincent lined up to ride, a couple of hot Triumph twins, a superb flat-tank cammy Velo, a 1930s Moto Guzzi flat single, plus potentially a rare 1930s Stevens, and more.

Added to that, my own 1927 side-valve Sunbeam now has its new oil-pump fitted - after the old one basically fell apart, this is a new casting, which has been machined and fitted with the old internals. The job took much longer than anticipated, owing to unfortunate circumstances, but we were there now. It was fired up just a week or two before 'shut-down' orders, and it struck up straight away, the black life-blood was flowing, and all seemed rosy. It was contentedly put aside, ready for the season.

As well as that, the sometimes comically revolving door of my garage had seen a couple of departures, with two newcomers - a 1949 Ariel Square Four and a preunit engined TriBSA, neither things I'd have put anywhere near the top of my 'most wanted' lists, but both came as parts of deals. As I've said before, my motorcycling mantra borrows from Oscar Wilde's great quote: "I can resist everything except temptation!"

In fairness, I had a similar TriBSA the best part of 20 years ago, but had to sell it before I even had a chance to sort and ride it, so it's an itch that needed scratching. The Squariel is harder to quantify ...

It'll probably be a while before all come out to play, but our time will come again. Take care, one and all.