Archive photograph

In the summer of 1946, a group of motorcycle enthusiasts, and their families, enjoy a few days under canvas.

Hardly ever will a picture more accurately represent a period in motorcycling history than this wonderfully evocative image, originally published in the June 27, 1946 edition of

The Motor Cycle.

There’s scant detail with its reproduction, simply captioned; “A club under canvas : A glimpse of the Southampton and DMCC camping members, who spent Whitsun in the grounds of Mr Wilson, The Lodge, Tiverton, as his guests.” The reverse of the original picture affords little details either, apart from a photographer’s stamp (‘S Brown, 3 Bampton Street, Tiverton’) and the pencilled instruction ‘Pay’ written in front of it.

In July 2020, 3 Bampton Street (a fivestorey building) was up for auction, the ground floor – one would imagine the site of Mr Brown’s photography business – an estate agents, with the four next floors given over to living. Details of Mr Wilson and The Lodge, Tiverton, have proved frustratingly elusive – perhaps a reader knows something of how and why the Southampton and District Club (with Southampton being over 100 miles from Tiverton, a town just north of Exeter in Devon) came to be staying in the grounds of Mr Wilson’s property?

There seems to be 11 motorcycles in the picture, with those encapsulating the period wonderfully. There’s three sets of telescopic forks to be seen – so most likely postwar models, unless (and more unlikely) updated machines – with the others all being mid-to-late 1930s. The first in line is obviously an International Norton (which we’ll come back to) then it’s a bit more tricky to tell what’s what. The machine with registration number DTR 538 (a Southampton sequence) is what would be a brand-new (postwar) Matchless or AJS single – the Teledraulic forks are evident – though it’s not possible to really see any more. If we could see the magneto position (behind the barrel on the Matchless, in front on the AJS) we’d know, while the lining was a different colour too – gold on the Ajay, white on the Matchless.

FRH 778 (from Hull or Beverley, in Yorkshire, surprisingly) is obviously a Triumph, with the exhaust pipe angle possibly suggesting a Speed Twin, though looking through the front wheel of the machine next to it, the timing cover looks more like a single. There’s no doubting the next two though – clearly both Velocettes, with the first (GL 1681, Truro registered) either a 250cc MOV or 350cc MAC, then next along an overhead camshaft 350cc KSS, which can be identified by the 21-inch front wheel – the pushrod 500cc MSS and cammy 350cc KTS shared most cycle parts with the KSS, but both those two sported 19-inch wheels and a valanced front mudguard.

Behind the boy’s right shoulder we can see another set of AMC Teledraulic forks, then over his left shoulder, ironically the

numberplate BOY 387 (a south London number). That machine would seem to be attached to a trials-type sidecar body – perhaps what the boy had travelled in? After the outfit, it becomes more tricky; CHO 595 (Salisbury number) perhaps has the look of a Rudge to it, maybe a 250cc Rapid, then DBL 628 (more tele forks and a Reading registration) is perhaps a BSA, then another unidentified (again, it looks a bit Rudge) before the outfit facing us, with launch type sidecar. Is it possible to make out an M on the petrol tank, making it a Matchless, most likely a Model X V-twin?

Though this picture has in some ways posed more questions than provided answers, there is one thing we do know for certain, which is that CTR 891 is a 490cc International Norton, Model 30, registered in July 1939. How can we be so sure? Because the Norton still appears on the DVLA database, and is still taxed and on the road. Alas, none of the other machines seem to be, but it’s great to know that at least one of them is still out there.

One wonders where and how the Inter had spent the war, perhaps safely stored in an outbuilding in Southampton, awaiting its owner’s return from active service, as the fellow sitting on it – as with the majority of the men in the picture – looks of an age where he would have been involved in the preceding six years of conflict. Indeed, the chap sat on CHO 595 seems to be wearing an army blouson. The summer of 1946, camping in Devon, with a gang of pals and a selection of motorcycles, must have felt like such a pleasure and return to normality for everyone.