PROJECT Motorcycle Retro Replay
Sometimes in life, you need a little prompting to get new projects off the ground, and this was the case with Motorcycle Retro Replay. I have a growing archive of motorcycle pictures covering all aspects of the twowheeled machines from many photographers around the world. It’s not just motorcycle trials that are my passion; if I am honest, I am a real ‘anorak’ concerning motocross, road racing and enduro. My prompt for this new magazine title came from an old friend, Peter Beardmore. He had contacted me in July 2017 to tell me he had a photographic collection dating back to 1962 and asked if I would be interested in the pictures.
Initially, Peter wanted to print a book, but this idea was ditched when he told me the very sad news that he had terminal cancer. It was a massive blow. I had known Peter since my early teens; he was such an inspirational guy and when he eventually passed away in late October 2017. It was a very sad time.
Scanning time
During the summer of 2017, while battling cancer, Peter had secretly been scanning all the photos for me, which was a huge help; he could not sleep and carried the scanning out late at night and in the early hours of the mornings.
On one of my visits to see him he gave me copied CDs of all the pictures he had scanned and all the originals. To say I am eternally grateful is a massive understatement. Peter had placed the majority of the photographs in albums with notes about the rider, machine and event and some comments. This was music to my ears!
I then had to park the project up for a while due to the commitments of my two mainstream publications Trial Magazine and Classic Trial Magazine. It would be May 2018 before I could start in earnest to locate pictures and informative text for the 132 pages I had planned for the A4 size magazine. Once I had these, it was all systems go.
Following my passion
As a small boy, I was very fortunate that my late father, Ron, had a good secure job at Ferodo brake linings at Chapel-en-le-Frith, employed as an automotive instrument fitter in the Research and Development department. The ‘perk’ of the job was a loan car that needed some muchvalued road miles putting on it to help with the brake and clutch development. Whatever Ferodo were working on was made available, and the free bit came from the fact that the all-important fuel was free of charge. The only catch was you had to put more than 150 miles on the car between Friday at 16.30 and Monday at 08.00!
Motorcycle Trials was the main attraction with many weekends to the Midlands, Yorkshire or Wales for trials and scrambles, or motocross as it was becoming known, and Oulton Park and Darley Moor, to name but a few, for road racing. The trade shows were attended, as were many car and motorcycle museums. Speedway and Grass Track could take us anywhere but the most memorable times had to be the ones where we went to watch Grand Prix Motocross at Dodington Park, Farleigh Castle, Hatherton Hall and Hawkstone Park. The Oulton Park road races including the transatlantic series between Great Britain and the USA with my mates Andy Gregory, and the late John Garlic, were great occasions also.
Magazine production
My good friend Dean Cook, at The Magazine Production Company, would design the magazine. A fellow motorcyclist himself, Dean knew exactly what I wanted, which mirrored in the first proof I saw of the magazine.
Various media companies helped source missing information with the text and Barry Robinson, Brian Holder, Don Morley, Eric Kitchen, John Moffat and Toon Van De Vliet all came to the rescue on many occasions.
I wanted a good mixture of both black & white and colour pictures as sometimes I am of the opinion that period pictures look better in black & white. I also wanted to get the ratio of each of the four disciplines in the magazine: trials, motocross, road racing and enduro to a good balance.
The majority of the pictures also needed to be fresh ones that had not been seen before, which I think we achieved quite well.
When the magazine arrived from Buxton Press, again the print quality was excellent and to their usual high standards. Here you can view some of the excellent pictures in the magazine.
Thank you
The magazine is not just about one person, John Hulme. Some of the pictures also came from my collection and from the many photographers I know as friends. Some we had to pay for but to have access to them is worth every penny.
Dean Cook did an excellent job to colour correct and enhance many of the photos that had aged with time. This from my own experience is not an easy task and quite laborious to get images to the best they can.
Davina Brooks worked well with the words I supplied, copy editing them to make sure it all made sense.
The response from the trade and the advertisers was very encouraging as many were super enthusiastic to see such a magazine in print — a big thank you for that, it was very much appreciated.
With Lisa Carr looking after the logistics, it all came to life and went out to the retailers and preorders in November 2018. I am happy to say that it’s been an enormous success.
To Peter Beardmore: if you are looking down, I thank you for the prompting to produce the magazine. For the early days of adventure to the many events with my parents Ron and Joyce, I can never remove such fond memories from my mind; they are there forever. To my wonderful wife Jane, all I have to say is a massive thank you for holding my hand and for putting up with me.
Sorry
I have to apologise on three counts. Firstly, there are some occasional spelling errors, which I will leave for you, the reader, to find. Secondly, because of the number of pages, we were not able to saddle-stitch (staple) the magazine together therefore it's inevitable that some of the better pictures were pulled into what we term the ‘gutter’ of the magazine as it was perfect bound. Thirdly, a small number of the references to facts and figures were not quite correct. On the whole, however, I am delighted with the product.