Letters

We eulogise about The Good Days, but were they really as good as we like to remember? In 1956 I was at a Cadwell Park race meeting with Charlie Freeman when, after the racing had finished and the paddock was emptying, a man came along, puffing, panting, and pushing his pride and joy of a…

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Re OBM 418, page 28, Pete Kelly’s “Technical Illustrations”. See photos (above) of the “ingenious” twist-grip dip switch, as illustrated on page 28 of OBM 418 – this one is fitted to my recently acquired 1956 BSA M33. I thought readers may like to see the actual item as I have never seen another one.…

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The mention of Durness (at the top left-hand corner of Scotland) in a page 16 photo caption of the April OBM edition reminded me of the journey we made to the top right-hand side of Scotland 56 years ago in 1964 from Birmingham. The story may be of interest to readers. We got as far…

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Back in the ’60s Tony Dunnell’s pride and joy was a BSA Shooting Star but unfortunately he crashed it. The front end was pretty well wrecked but Tony acquired a complete front end from a Gold Star plus other Goldie goodies. These were duly transferred to the Shooting Star by Tony himself – nothing unusual…

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Here are three photos which might be of interest to Old Bike Mart readers – the first two of which are my father in 1921 with his Rudge Multi, and a photo of it on its own. My father worked at the National Physical Laboratory in the meteorology department and, because of that, he was…

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I am asking the knowledgeable readers of OBM if anybody has any info on a motorcycle shop in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire owned by Chic Parr? My Google searches have resulted in zero! As a youth in the mid-Sixties I am as guilty as the rest for the demise of the British bike industry as choosing…

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It’s not exactly my first bike, nor my last, but one of my early mounts – a 1951 Royal Oilfield 350 Bullet before and after a big “coming off”. I received £100 and the scrap from the other party’s insurance, that was more than 12 weeks’ wages for me, a 19 year old, in 1959.…

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I like the ‘My first bike’ articles, it is very interesting to read about readers’ bikes and how they ran them on a shoestring. Here is a photo of my New Imperial Model 30 which is a 1933 250cc, I paid £2 10 shillings when I bought it, or should I say Mother probably paid…

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Like many of my generation in the early days after the war I, Colyn (yes, that is the Cornish spelling) grew up with various motorcycles – an ex-War Department 125cc James and the D1 BSA Bantam in particular. Although my father was a farmer he was also a keen motorcyclist with various old motorcycles lying…

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BKX 197 came to my family in 1959, when my grandmother paid £10 for it so that my brother could come home on weekend passes from RAF Yatesbury in Wiltshire to Littlehampton, Sussex. On fine summer nights he would sleep rough at Stonehenge, when access was free and unhindered. There was never any intention to…

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