Rude awakenings part 1

They're funny these projects, you end up going off on all sorts of tangents. I wrote a while back about getting myself organised and how I joined the Velocette club as a means of getting in touch with like minded people and finding technical help.  Well it's become more than that.  It's brought about a coming to terms with something so obvious yet I'd quite missed it until now.  It's the realisation that to own a Velocette as I have is to become part of an endangered species, a dying breed.

I live in southern France.  Normal stuff - I work, my children go to school, my wife works and we have friends and neighbours.  On the other hand, the majority of Brits here - in fact the majority of foreigners I know living here - are "baby boomers".  They are retired or semi-retired and / or have second homes here.  They're another tranch of society to me altogether.  They grew up to live through the sixties and seventies and reap the benefits of that economy.  They own a substantial value of property that youngsters today couldn't even hope to have.  I have no problem with people whose good fortune is the era they were born to, but I'm not one of them.

It comes home to me as I shop in the local supermarkets.  There's often an aisle for foreign food (so French, that) and frequently I look in the British section to see what's there and what I find is like a museum display.  Scotts Porridge oats, Birds instant custard, Fray Bentos steak and kidney pies.  It's there because that's what the French find they can sell most of to the local British expats but to me it's the food of another era.  Old folks food.  Not mine, I'm not old - when I left school the Sex Pistols had a hit with "God save the queen".  I'm a seventeen year old boy who's learned to survive in an ageing body.

What has all this to do with the Velocette club?  Well I've had two issues of the Fishtail (the Velo club Magazine) and the first thing that struck me were the obituaries.  Ok granted, obituaries for people the other side of eighty, but obituaries none the less.  As I read through the rest I learned more about a group of nice people, really nice, decent people who organise regular runs with ale and tea and biscuits.  I read about people thanking each other for help rendered along the runs or for parts loaned to enable each other to go to events.  They are technically very competent engineers and they know more than a thing or two about running and administering a club and a spares business.  They sound like my kind of people and I have a strong suspicion that there's a fair amount of Fray Bentos pies consumed by this demographic.  In fact I wouldn't be supprised if some of them are partial to Birds instant custard and that Scotts Porridge Oats features on more than a few of their breakfast tables. 

This year the BBC ran a thing about the celebrities who died in the last twelve months -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12052144
- and I notice that it's started to mean something to me now.  Do you know that Dennis Hopper, Malcolm McLaren and Allan Silitoe all died this year?  That covers motorcycle heroes, rock 'n roll and tales of post war angry young men.

Bloody hell.

Pictures from the Idiot's lantern show

After digging about in old family photos for another project I came across some evidence that there really was a bike called RPR 657 and a boy who had it ingrained into his persona.  First of all here he is on the BSA B25SS mentioned at the beginning:

On the BSA in 1978 with L plate discretely folded away.  My mate Alan is on the 500/4 (replaced his CB200) with my sister Sam on the back.

Here's the Velo in 1979:

My Venom with tangeable evidence of my dedication.  I would take any job to earn a few extra pennies to keep it on the road - how many eighteen year old would be rockers do you know who would baby sit?

This is the Venom post -crash with the Dodkin rolling chassis and re-painted tank.  The mudguards are cheapo ally ones that I'd get through at a rate of two front and four rear a year - worse than tyres!

And the face behind this? 

Dedicated and wearing the badge of faith... needing a haircut!

So there it is.