Information requested on Manx that was not a Manx

This is a long shot, but let’s try.

I am looking for an older article (maybe 1960s?) about a bike pertaining to be a Manx Norton, but was proven to have never been such. My recollection of the machine was in the late 1950s, perhaps early 60s, it was owned by a Mr ‘Scruff ’ Griffiths from the Llanvihangel/Pandy Gwent area in Wales and was then purchased by Mr Dai Perkins from Grosmont Gwent. The machine was Mr Perkins’s pride and joy, he believing it was a genuine Manx Norton. It was then left in a coal shed when Mr Perkins moved house and was then acquired by Mr Trevor Davies from the same village. It appears Mr Davies believed the machine to be genuine, too, and showed it in around the border areas – Abergavenny/Hereford etc – and it really did look the part, and was shown with a detailed sign board.

It was then looked at by someone who knew what he was looking at and was not what it said on the packet. It became quite a talking point and eventually an article was written in one of the motorcycle magazines, though I don’t know which one. I have searched and cannot find the article. I have always wondered what a Manx would be doing in that area – at my first sighting it was fitted with a sidecar chassis, so I wonder if it was built by the local grass tracker Trevor ‘Bomber’ Harris and just looked like, so was presented as such, and fooled some but not all.

Can any of your readers remember the article? I’d love to find the story. Dave Jones, via email.